Read this.
Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser says the UK is four weeks behind Italy, What does that mean?
www.bbc.co.uk
It's obviously impossible to contain the virus at this point, it can only be delayed. Sadly the reality is that most people are going to get it at some point regardless whether now or later. The key is to keep the lowest strain on health services for as long as possible, so they can continue to support the most vulnerable. Whilst the virus is scattered evenly across the UK without any hot spots that means health services won't be overly stretched. But if clusters start to present like in northern Italy, then that could spell disaster. Which is why the UK has significantly increased the daily testing to help with the modelling, to ensure they can take the right actions in the right places as precisely the right time, and also detect cases early enough to provide early treatment and avoid fatality.
If
everything gets shut down now, we're only delaying the inevitable rather than staggering it.
Whether the strategy works remains to be seen. It certainly isn't a populist strategy but then BoJo and co have no reason to pander to populism at this moment given their political position.
But when Wuhan opens for business again we're simply going to see the virus rise again there.
Also OP, I think you're confused. The decisions BoJo and co are making are only in force in England, not "UK". Scotland, Wales and NI are taking their own measures and decisions are made separately - eg banning of mass gatherings in Scotland.