Maintaining the Aim

The effort to overcome Covid-19 has often been characterised by ministers as a ‘war’.
The first principle of war is the selection and maintenance of the aim. You have to know exactly what it is that you are seeking to achieve and design all your policy towards obtaining that aim.
Back in March the aim was defined as ‘flattening the curve to protect the NHS’
Last week I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, if this had remained the same.
He replied “our aim is to flatten the curve, to protect the NHS and to save lives” and significantly he added “protect the economy”
Neither the aim expressed in March, nor the restatement by Mr Gove last week gives us much by which we can judge the direction or effectiveness of policy. We do not know what the end state is supposed to be. We do not know for sure if the aim is to contain, delay the spread, suppress, or eradicate the disease. ‘Flattening the curve’ seems to suggest merely delaying the spread which was certainly understandable back in March: by delaying we would reach the warmer summer weather; The NHS would have less flu, norovirus, and other winter pressures to deal with; and the virulence of coronaviruses tend to abate in summer months.
‘Flattening the curve’ is much less understandable as a statement of the aim in the autumn.

I am often at a loss as to what the Government’s policies are supposed to achieve.
A typical example is the nationwide 10pm curfew on the hospitality industry, particularly given Mr Gove’s additional stated aim to ‘protect the economy’.
The virus certainly can’t tell the time, and the impact on the industry is devastating: To comply with regulations premises have reduced their capacity and introduced expensive new staff-intensive procedures. Consequently, sufficient opening ours are vital to secure sufficient revenues, especially where restaurants need to secure a second dinner sitting.
This policy, applied across the country despite widely different infection rates, makes nonsense of the stated aim.
It would have been better to devolve powers to the local levels where any curfew could have been applied to individual establishments, giving proprietors a powerful incentive to influence the social-distancing behaviour of their patrons.