[Retric]

> I think we need to distinguish between government imposed lockdown and measure that people take on their own.

Why? It’s an exponential curve, either the number of cases is increasing or decreasing it makes little difference until you swap from one to the other. There is zero evidence that purely voluntary methods would have worked.

Further, the problem with using a zero policy baseline is voluntary lockdowns would also wrecked the economy. Movie theaters etc can’t operate if 90+% of the population including their staff is staying home. You can try and get some sort of synthetic baseline economic harm without government policies but you also get feedback loops of people staying home more as the situation falls apart.

That’s especially true of foreign countries. China’s lockdowns appeared to be extremely effective, but they where going to wreck US supply chains irrespective of the US response to COVID.

It’s even possible that government shutdowns reduced overall economic harm. Remember, lockdowns prioritized essential services, the disease wouldn’t have been so discriminatory. The zero government intervention baseline likely results in major disruptions in essential services like food delivery.