I agree entirely here. In fact I know people at the time jumping up and down and saying "apply the Wuhan quarantine rules to everyone arriving from mainland Eur

I agree entirely here. In fact I know people at the time jumping up and down and saying "apply the Wuhan quarantine rules to everyone arriving from mainland Europe in general, or indeed anywhere". The key to me seems to have been that measures were put in place slowly, at the pace ministers move at, rather than the pace experts can make decisions at. Asking everyone who returned to quarantine for 7 days would clearly have helped, with the benefit of hindsight. I think the issue is that politicians tend to want to avoid imposing what are seen as invasive measures where they feel the risk is low. Their assessment of the level of risk posed by those returning from overseas holidays in February was clearly now, in the cold light of day, very poor. The sheer number of people overseas at the time probably didn't help matters - some suggestions that as many as 1 million people were overseas at the time [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/uk-battling-to-repatriate-hundreds-of-thousands-of-britons-says-dominic-raab-coronavrus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/uk-battling-to...