Jury is out on whether lockdowns significantly decrease cases & deaths relative to other measures (e.g. social distancing, hygiene, limiting big events)
However we have enough info from different countries to say something.
We also know lockdown is not a *sufficient* condition for stopping cases increasing (see Argentina).
So policymakers need to consider both costs & benefits of lockdown.
The benefits are much more uncertain but we can think of (at least) 4 scenarios.
Given the enormity of the costs, policymakers would probably need a fairly big reduction in cases/deaths to justify lockdown.
It seems less than convincing given experience so far, e.g. given that cases were coming down before the lockdown was even implemented.
Given uncertainty about the latter & the certainty about lockdown costs, this is unlikely to provide a strong basis for lockdown policy.
This would be devastating for lockdown policy as it suggests huge costs with zero benefits.
thelancet.com/journals/eclin…