This is a tricky situation indeed, and I suspect that many governments face the same conundrum right now with the pandemic. If you take the right measures early

This is a tricky situation indeed, and I suspect that many governments face the same conundrum right now with the pandemic. If you take the right measures early on and everything goes well many people in the opposition will say that you just did it for the media circus in order to get attention, wasting people's time and tax money. If you don't take action and things get out of hand then you're blamed for not taking action earlier. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In the end you end up in this perverse situation where you have to wait long enough for the public to understand what's at stake but not long enough that you won't be able to keep things under control. Quite the tightrope trick.