The UK Government are ramping-up their response to the Coronavirus by readying 20,000 British troops to be deployed on streets across the nation.
The most extreme measures ever taken in peacetime will resemble those in other European countries such as France and Italy where you currently need permission to go outside, and if you do, require the correct papers to prove your business is not breaking the government's directives. The UK Government has given itself sweeping new powers which will soon include forcing people to stay in lockdown, with the media already calling it 'the new normal'.
Some civil-liberty groups have expressed concerns that these measures, although meant to be temporary, may become permanent. history shows us that 'temporary laws' have a nasty habit of becoming permanent, particularly in Fascist and Communist countries where response to a 'crisis' is often used as an excuse to bring in draconian laws and authoritarian rulers. The new powers have been rushed through, effectively circumventing the normal processes of government, something libertarians are also concerned about.
The assumption of Boris Johnson and UK scientists is that we are around 2-4 Weeks behind the Italy outbreak, and all these measures are based upon that assumption. However, comparing any country with another is a dubious practice. Italy's population is the eldest in Europe, the demographic most susceptible to the virus. Italy has a large percentage of smokers with associated lung diseases such as COPD, another high risk factor for Covid-19. Italy also has different social norms; kissing instead of handshaking, closer personal space and so on. Italy also didn't implement the same measures, at the same time, as the UK is doing and there is also evidence their recording of cases differs from ours, therefore using Italy as a data model to predict what happens in Britain must be taken with some scepticism.
The UK, and other countries in Europe, are running the risk of making the cure worse than the infection.