I think one of the issues here is incentive. Politicians' incentives don't always align with those of the population. In this case they can put out a strong warning and start acting with lockdowns etc or say everything is fine.
If they say everything is fine, then either 1) things are, in which case they look good after the fact for remaining calm or 2) things go south and they can deflect and point to other countries that are in the same boat.
If on the other hand they warn of incoming disaster and lock things down, still one of two things happen. 1) everything is indeed fine and they get destroyed for crashing the economy. or 2) the economy gets locked down and the pandemic isn't so severe. But the damage to the economy is still there and there will be no higher death count that could've happened to compare against. In this case they probably won't get much credit either.
So it seems to them then start acting early brings no benefits and only downsides.
If they say everything is fine, then either 1) things are, in which case they look good after the fact for remaining calm or 2) things go south and they can deflect and point to other countries that are in the same boat.
If on the other hand they warn of incoming disaster and lock things down, still one of two things happen. 1) everything is indeed fine and they get destroyed for crashing the economy. or 2) the economy gets locked down and the pandemic isn't so severe. But the damage to the economy is still there and there will be no higher death count that could've happened to compare against. In this case they probably won't get much credit either.
So it seems to them then start acting early brings no benefits and only downsides.