LONDON — Each evening at the stroke of 5, a British cabinet minister and two expert advisers walk into a clubby, wood-paneled room at 10 Downing Street and take their places behind three socially distanced lecterns.

The room is empty but for a large screen, which flickers with the images of journalists, most of them at home, who politely pepper the officials with questions about Britain’s response to the coronavirus. The experts show slides with bars and graphs, and the minister briskly ends the proceedings in under an hour.

This is Britain’s answer to the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing — and except for the starting time, Downing Street’s genteel exercise is the antithesis of the fiery, freewheeling spectacle presided over by President Trump across the Atlantic.

At one level, that is surprising. Britain has been hit hard by the pandemic and the government has come under fire for mishandling its response. Prime Minister Boris Johnson initially played down the threat in ways that echoed Mr. Trump, and British papers have published lengthy investigations of his missteps.