The Guardian view on the coronavirus crisis: much worse is to come

The UK expects thousands of deaths, and dangerously mixed messages risk making an already grave situation worse

Data shows that the UK's coronavirus outbreak is following a similar trajectory to Italy's, with around a two-week delay. While panic will not help anyone, the only rational reaction to this information is serious alarm. On Saturday, 793 fatalities took Italy's death toll, already higher than China's, to 4,825. The pattern of exponential growth is repeated in other western countries including Spain.

If the disease advances in the UK as scientists expect, the number of people killed will increase from 281 to around 5,000 in about two weeks' time. These are the brute facts that led to last week's switch in government policy, with an approach focused on "mitigation" partially replaced with a more aggressive policy of "suppression".