The government had to be pushed reluctantly into this one: essentially by public opinion.
Yes, and the public just spontaneously got these opinions. Nothing to do with continuous frightening headlines. Here a random collection from the week before the lockdown:
The Guardian doing its bit with predicting 8 million in NHS hospitals.
If you interpret Thomas' point in a broader sense to include media and medical officials under `authority', he's quite right.
As for the government having to be pushed into it reluctantly, that's not necessarily true. There were indications that they thought it would prove highly unpopular and were surprised that it turned out it wasn't (thanks to project fear -- see above). Far better (for the elites) to have the populations asking for more state and police powers then them being imposed from above.