UK confirms its first COVID-19 case. On 3 March, the UK government releases its Coronavirus Action Plan. The initial response resists any mandatory measures, keeping schools, restaurants, theatres, clubs, and sporting venues open, and advising only the over-70s and those with flu-like symptoms to self-isolate for 7 days. Johnson and other members of the government recommend washing hands as the primary way to avoid catching COVID, although on 3 March he mentions shaking hands with everyone in a ward treating COVID-19 patients. Later advice recommends social distancing particularly for vulnerable groups, and advises against non-essential travel. National borders are kept open – a decision later criticised for enabling the virus to be continuously imported into the UK. Large sporting events continue to be held into March, including the Cheltenham races and football matches, according to the rationale provided by members of SPI-B (the behavioural science subcommittee of Sage) that people would go to pubs to watch sport or socialise instead, leading to an even greater risk of viral transmission. This approach changes with the Premier League decision to suspend games on 13 March. A series of large critical care “Nightingale” hospitals is planned to deal with the expected influx of COVID patients, although as of November these are largely unused despite their cost of over £200m.

Government scientists initially seem to advise an approach of building up herd immunity in the population, while Chief Medical Officer for England, Chris Whitty, cites the possibility of “behavioural fatigue” on 9 March as a reason for delaying a national lockdown, arguing that if imposed too early, people might tire of following the rules. Yet “behavioural fatigue” has no basis in behavioural science, and it is unclear where the idea originates from: the behavioural subcommittee advising Sage (SPI-B) deny they suggested it, as does the government’s “nudge unit” (the Behavioural Insights Team). On March 12, Public Health England stops testing members of the general population with COVID symptoms and manually tracing their contacts due to the scale of transmission.

In a televised address, Johnson announces a nationwide lockdown lasting at least 3 weeks, and introduces the slogan: “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”. Shortly afterwards, Johnson falls ill with the virus and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab takes over amid uncertainty about who is in charge of national decision-making. Government spokespeople appear on TV alongside the UK’s chief scientific advisors to provide daily updates on the state of the pandemic. During lockdown, police in England issue approximately16,000 fines for alleged breaches of the restrictions. The lockdown is finally lifted in stages from mid-May. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland begin to take their own measures for extending or easing lockdowns and introducing other restrictions and slogans.  

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announces a 5–pillar plan for testing with a target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April. In order to meet this highly ambitious timeframe, the government decides not to build up existing NHS hospital, university, or Public Health England testing capacity. Instead, it begins to put together a complex new testing system dominated by the private sector, with tests checked by a variety of “Lighthouse” laboratories run by corporations. Test capacity increases, but there is criticism that the official figures on testing are misleading, as they include even test kits put in the post that may not be completed or returned.  

Google and Apple announce the development of a system to help the development of decentralised Bluetooth contact-tracing apps. Two days later, Health Minister Matt Hancock announces the development of a “new NHS app for contact tracing”, led by NHSX, involving a centralised system where contact history data is stored on a central NHSX server rather than on a person’s own device, and that will also rely on users inputting their symptoms rather than positive test results. Head of NHSX Matthew Gould tells parliament’s science and technology committee that a centralised approach offers “profound benefits” for tracking the virus and suggests that waiting for the Apple/Google framework would slow development down. However, Google and Apple will not allow a new app that hasn’t been developed through their framework to use Bluetooth running in the background, meaning that any attempt to build an app that uses this functionality will be largely ineffective. In addition, an open letter published on 19 April and signed by hundreds of professors from 26 countries warns that contact-tracing apps could  if they become a tool for “large scale data collection on the population”. The government’s ethics advisory board, set up to oversee the development of the digital contact tracing app, writes to Hancock warning that unreliable contact-tracing apps could provide a false sense of security and worsen the spread of COVID-19. On 20 April, Ada Lovelace Institute publishes “COVID-19 Rapid Evidence Review: Exit through the App Store?” which argues that the current “technical limitations” and “social impacts” outweigh the potential benefits of the government’s proposed app. On 6 May, the Financial Times reports that the UK government has hired a Swiss software developer to build a second app, this time using Apple and Google’s decentralised system. The first app is tested on the Isle of Wight at the start of May – a decision criticised as unrepresentative of England and Wales’ populations at large. “catastrophically hamper trust” if they become a tool for “large scale data collection on the population”. The government’s Ethics Advisory Board, set up to oversee the development of the digital contact tracing app, writes to Hancock warning that unreliable contact-tracing apps could provide a false sense of security and worsen the spread of COVID-19. On 20 April, Ada Lovelace Institute publishes “COVID-19 Rapid Evidence Review: Exit through the App Store?” which argues that the current “technical limitations” and “social impacts” outweigh the potential benefits of the government’s proposed app. Meanwhile, the UK parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights states that the government’s privacy assurances are not sufficient to protect data privacy and propose new legislation to ensure it, including the creation of a Digital Contact Tracing Human Rights Commissioner. On 6 May, the Financial Times reports that the UK government has hired a Swiss software developer to build a second app, this time using Apple and Google’s decentralised system. The first app is tested on the Isle of Wight at the start of May – a decision criticised as unrepresentative of England and Wales’ populations at large.  

Influential epidemiologist Prof Neil Ferguson resigns as a government advisor after it is revealed that he broke lockdown rules. He is the latest in a series of influential figures who break lockdown or social distancing rules, which will eventually include UK senior government aide Dominic Cummings, Scotland’s chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scottish National Party MP Margaret Ferrier, ex-leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson’s father Stanley Johnson, and others. 

Johnson promises a “world-beating” track and trace system by 1 June including 25,000 trackers dealing with 10,000 new cases/day. On 28 May, the new NHS Test and Trace System is unveiled, managed by Baroness Dido Harding and largely operated by private companies including Deloitte, Serco, Sitel, and Amazon, in parallel with Public Health England’s local health protection teams and local authorities. The system is launched without the digital contact tracing app, with a budget that reaches £12bn by October. Serco’s initial deal to supply contact tracers until 23 August was worth £108m with the possibility of rising to £410m if extended. Sitel, which operates the call centres, was initially paid £84m, increasing to £310m if extended. In its first week, 5,407 people with the virus are contacted, amid reports that contact tracers had not received sufficient training and often had nothing to do. Despite earlier hyping of the digital contact tracing app under development, Harding says that human contact tracing was the “bedrock” of the test and trace scheme, while the app is merely the “cherry on top of the cake”. Similarly Minister Lord Bethell says about app: “We are seeking to get something going for the winter, but it isn’t the priority for us at the moment”. On 10 August, the government announces that 6,000 out of 18,000 contact tracers employed by Serco and Sitel would be sacked. Following criticism of over-centralisation and disappointing results in tracing contacts, in early August, further contact tracing is devolved to local authority level. In October, it is discovered that details of around 16,000 positive cases had been accidentally deleted while test results were being aggregated by Public Health England to pass to NHS Test and Trace, due to the use of outdated Excel spreadsheets. By November, there were reports of the government in talks with data analytics firm Palantir to fix problems with the NHS Test and Trace system, which in November was estimated to reach only around 18% of every infected person’s contacts, while the government’s SAGE advisors estimate that of the contacts reached, only around 20% are likely to be fully compliant when asked to self-isolate (NHS Test and Trace puts this estimate at around 50%). This falls far short of government targets, with advisers saying that to be effective, 80% of people testing positive must be reached and their close contacts traced, and that 80% of these contacts should then be reached and asked to self-isolate. 

The UK government finally announces that it has abandoned the development of its own centralised contract tracing app for a second app developed using the Apple/Google API. The total cost of the original app was around £10m, and was abandoned following heavy criticism relating to data protection and privacy, as well as technical limitations that made the app ineffective. Field tests on both versions of the app find that the first version registered about 75% of nearby Android devices, but just 4% of iPhones, while the Apple / Google version was more accurate, logging 99% of Android devices and iPhones, but had difficulty measuring the distance between users’ devices. Harding states that neither version is fit for purpose and that NHSX will work on creating an app that would “enable anyone with a smartphone to engage with every aspect of the NHS Test and Trace service”.

The UK government makes the wearing of face masks by shoppers in shops and supermarkets compulsory in England. Advocates such as Prof Trisha Greenhalgh have been advising since early in the pandemic for applying the precautionary principle that masks should be worn, but government support for mask-wearing has been cautious. Since mid-May, the government had advised people to wear face coverings in enclosed public spaces, and this was made compulsory on public transport in England and at NHS facilities across the UK since 15 June. The new requirement for masks in shops and supermarkets goes largely unenforced, as many businesses refuse to police the rule, and the police themselves lack the resources to do so at a national scale. Shop workers are exempt from the rule. Anti-mask conspiracy theories continue to circulate on social media, and sporadic anti-lockdown protests are also often anti-mask.   

The UK government announces that Public Health England will be replaced by the National Institute for Health Protection, a new agency created to deal with the threat of infectious diseases by combining Public Health England with the NHS Test and Trace operation, to be headed initially by Dido Harding (currently the head of NHS Test and Trace).

The Diamond Princess cruise ship, with 3,711 passengers and crew on board, is placed under quarantine in Yokohama for 14 days. This is the first encounter in Japan with a substantial infection cluster, and the measures taken to deal with it are widely seen as inadequate, as over 700 on board are ultimately infected with COVID-19. However, much is learned from epidemiologists about how the virus spreads. The government’s strategy subsequently focuses on preventing large-scale clusters, leading to the suspension of large gatherings, and the limiting of patients with minor symptoms from visiting medical facilities. Public health advice is clearly communicated to the public at an early stage, encouraging people to wear masks and avoid the “3Cs” (sanmitsu in Japanese): closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings. The tiny amount of testing in Japan, by comparison to countries like South Korea or Germany, and the difficulty for most people to obtain a test, will remain a concern for many over the coming months. As of 30 April, 10,981 people have been tested in Tokyo, with just over 4,000 (36%) returned positive; official guidelines for doctors state that tests should only be recommended if the patient has pneumonia, suggesting hidden but widespread community transmission (by the end of May, the percentage of positive results will drop to below 1%). This is also part of the reason for the suspicion early in the pandemic that the Japanese government was suppressing the true number of COVID cases through lack of testing (even when capacity was available) and misrecording deaths as pneumonia, although no conclusive evidence has been presented for this accusation, and excess deaths figures show a reduction in deaths in 2020 compared with previous years. Public health experts such as Prof Kenji Shibuya urge the Japanese government to conduct more testing.  

In a televised address on the national response to COVID‐19, PM Abe asks Japanese people to exercise jishuku (“self-restraint”) – avoiding leisure activities, fun family events, or vacations. Unlike almost every other country, the Japanese government has no power to impose punitive measures to compel people to follow its recommendations, and can only request people to do so voluntarily. The government also does not have the legal power to shut schools, but requests that they do so on the 2 March; at the time, this is an unpopular move, seen as an overreaction by some domestic and international observers. 

Following a distinct lack of public appearances in February, Prime Minister Abe’s approval ratings slump to the high 30s – the lowest of his second term – and millions call for his resignation on Twitter. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, on the other hand, wins praise for her clear communication during the pandemic, ultimately leading to her landslide reelection on July 5.

The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare conducts the first of four “national surveys for COVID-19 countermeasures” in collaboration with LINE, Japan’s most popular messaging/social media company with 83 million users (67% of the Japanese population). Approximately 30% of users (about 20% of the Japanese population) respond. This is seen as a quick way to gauge the approximate level of COVID–19 symptoms being experienced nationwide. 

On 16 April, PM Abe extends it to the rest of the country for an indefinite period, although it is ultimately lifted for the whole country on 25 May. In the intervening weeks, people are asked to stay home during the key “Golden Week” holiday period, and again to practice jishuku (“self-restraint”). This is the closest that Japan comes to the kinds of national lockdowns seen in the UK and Europe. The government has no legal authority to shut private businesses or impose penalties on people who refuse to socially distance or wear masks, but its recommendations are followed by the overwhelming majority of citizens. Kentaro Iwata, the expert in infectious diseases who criticised the measures taken in dealing with the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise liner, condemns the government’s lack of clear messaging on the need to stay at home and maintain social distance. 

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced recommendations for a “new lifestyle” (atarashii seikatsuyōshiki) – long-term changes to behaviour to be practiced even after the end of the state of emergency. These include previous advice about social distancing and mask wearing, but also seek to normalise a variety of further practical changes to everyday life, such as refraining from speaking on public transport, avoiding sitting side-by-side while eating meals, and exercising at home. These suggestions remain voluntary, as the government lacks the legal power to enforce them.

From March onwards, there have been growing media reports and social media mention of so-called jishuku keisatsu (“self-restraint police”) – those who harass or publicly shame people online whom they believe have broken the government’s recommendation for “self-restraint” (e.g. by travelling outside their local area). Other terms include masuku keisatsu (“mask police”), coined for those who tell people off for not wearing masks on the street. Several people who are rumoured to have tested positive for COVID-19, as well as some medical staff working on the frontline and their children, are reported to face bullying and discrimination. There are reports of cars with out-of-prefecture license plates being egged, and stones are thrown at the home of a COVID patient in Mie. The phrase jishuku keisatsu – an inherent contradiction in terms that exposes jishuku’s underlying sense of social coercion rather than individual free choice – is eventually named one of the top buzzwords of 2020.

The New York Times reports him as saying: “By doing things in a uniquely Japanese way, we were able to almost completely end this wave of infection”, and suggesting that the “Japan model” offered a path out of the global pandemic. 

In an Upper House finance committee meeting, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso says: “I often got phone calls from (people) in other countries asking, ‘Do you guys have your own special medicine or something? I told these people, ‘Between your country and our country, mindo (the level of people) is different.’ And that made them speechless and quiet. Every time.” Mindo (民度) has the nuance of ethno-cultural superiority, and Aso, who has a well-established reputation as a right-wing provocateur, is denounced by opposition politicians.  

RIKEN and Fujitsu announce the launch of the world’s fastest supercomputer, Fugaku. The computer is initially used to model aerosols droplets to understand the spread of COVID in enclosed spaces, with findings informing the height of office partitions to prevent COVID transmission, and the effectiveness of different types of face mask.

The government launches the “Go To” tourism campaign, heavily subsidising domestic leisure travel. The campaign is widely criticised as misjudged in the midst of Japan’s second wave of infection, and likely to spread COVID-19 around the country at a time when travel should be avoided. The number of new cases spikes at the start of August before falling slightly in September, although cases remain high. In September, Go To is extended to subsidising visits to restaurants, and a further extension is planned to subsidise attending events by the end of the year. A third wave – the biggest to hit Japan so far – builds in November, with over 1,000 cases per day.