Here we attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of the UK lockdown, and lockdowns in general, by comparing the data from different countries and looking at the various factors involved.
Despite the clear damage the lockdown has caused and will continue to cause, it is of course not enough to merely point this out, as our government did not choose to implement the lockdown in ignorance of these facts. The question is whether what we are seeing are acceptable losses, in the face of an otherwise existential crisis. Did the lockdown really save us all from certain doom?
A somewhat controversial recent study coming from JPMorgan suggests not, concluding that lockdowns have little effect on the infection rate within countries. Such a conclusion is justifiably hard to swallow, based not only on the immense sacrifices made in the last few months – and the shared belief that those sacrifices were warranted – but also on how counter-intuitive the claim seems. How could a virus, which travels exclusively through close human contact, be unaffected by the amount of close human contact in a society? The study bases this mainly on an examination of infection statistics in countries which have begun to lift their lockdowns, finding that the rate of infection is consistently either the same or lower both during lockdown and after restrictions have been lifted. If the lockdowns were effective, the study reasons, we would expect a spike of infections after the restrictions end. This is not what we are seeing. While this study is in no way definitive, and its conclusion seems like somewhat of a stretch given the evidence – especially the suggestion that the lockdowns have actually increased the infection rate – it does raise a valid question, and provide some basis for doubting whether our response to the virus has been effective.
A comparison with other countries
Being as we are, very much in the midst of a crisis, it is hard to make substantiated claims about what has and hasn’t worked. However, one recourse we do have available is the information gathered so far, crucially on how we compare to other countries, which have responded to the pandemic in different ways. Although, again it is hard to make out decisive patterns and correlations using this method, when there are hundreds, if not thousands of factors which would influence the impact of the virus in different corners of the globe, we can hopefully gain some rough idea of what has been successful and what hasn’t, and besides, we have little else to work with.
If we focus our attention on Europe, with a view to figuring out why the UK ranks the second highest in terms of per capita death rate, a few factors stick out as seemly significant. Firstly, we have to account for the difference in the way countries record deaths; the UK record includes all cases of covid deaths, and deaths where covid is the suspected cause. Whereas, in Germany for example, only confirmed covid cases are included, and in Spain the method for counting deaths was altered to no longer report the daily death toll, after this the numbers apparently dropped drastically, suggesting some political manipulation. While these discrepancies in deaths statistics will likely not account for an amount significant enough to put the UK in line with the likes of Germany in terms of deaths, it is interesting to note that the two countries with the highest deaths, being Belgium and Britain, both have some of the most comprehensive methods for calculating deaths in Europe. Secondly, another factor which seems to correlate to a high death toll is population density, with the Belgium and the UK have the first and second highest population density respectively, mirroring their rankings in death rates. Although it is intuitive that a more densely packed nation would have a harder time controlling the spread of the virus, and while the stats seem to bear this out to some extent, this pattern only goes so far. When looking at Germany, which has a remarkably low death rate compared to its neighbours, we can see it ranks in the top five most densely populated European nations, not too far behind the UK, implying that either something was done to mitigate the effect of this factor in Germany, or that density is not significant.
The German response
Working on the assumption of the former possibility, we can see that Germany had one of the strictest and most total lockdowns in Europe. German states began restrictive measures from mid-February, and although total lockdown came at a similar time to the UK, it was enforced far more severely – fines for breaking curfew were set at 25,000 Euros as early as the 20th of March in some regions. In addition to this, flights were being restricted from February, with almost all flights from affected EU countries grounded by the 18th March, a step the UK has only begun to take in June, and thus a factor which sets the two countries apart. While it is difficult to judge the exact impact this had on the German infection rate, it is undeniable that flights where the primary means the virus had of spreading to different countries in this initial period. Even a few infected people being introduced would have opened up a huge number to infection, especially before lockdown measures were in place. This being the case it is hard to overlook this factor when comparing the two countries.
Another significant disparity between Germany and the UK is the relative preparedness of the healthcare system, which includes the number of beds available as well as the infrastructure in place to deliver newly essential supplies across the nation. We have seen that, despite initial fears, the number of beds and available staff never reached a critical level in the UK, and that our response was effective in keeping the NHS from being overwhelmed. However one area in which our failure was acutely apparent was in the production and distribution of medical equipment, including PPE and covid testing. While the Germans were pumping out 500,000 tests per day in mid-April, we in the UK struggled to hit even half that number two months down the line. The difference this made was likely immense, with healthcare workers being able to continue working without having to quarantine themselves for weeks on end for a runny nose, and those who did have the virus were able to know for certain, and quarantine more effectively. In this case knowledge really was power.
The example of Germany on the surface may seem to imply that a strict lockdown is an effective bulwark against the virus, however we can see that there are several factors in which Germany differs significantly from the UK, and therefore could have been the cause of the difference in death rate.
The Swedish response
To decipher which of these to take seriously, we must turn to another example, being that of Sweden. Very much the outlier in European responses to the virus, Sweden never implemented a full lockdown, and so we would assume that the pandemic would have been much more severe, if lockdowns are truly effective. Counter-intuitively, this does not appear to be the case, although the situation in Sweden is far from positive, and cannot compare to the likes of Germany, by every metric Sweden seems to have coped similarly to the UK, with the death rate being somewhat lower – although still relatively high. That said, the Swedish healthcare system was put under significant strain, with many operations being postponed due to lack of PPE equipment. This, however, was a problem faced by the UK as well and one which is caused more by a poorly funded and equipped healthcare system, rather than a significantly higher infection rate – as we have seen Germany was able to cope easily with the crisis, despite a denser population.
This suggests that the primary factors influencing the death rate have more to do with preparedness and funding, which allow for PPE and covid tests to be quickly manufactured and distributed. If the lockdown were in fact the main determinant of success, we would have expected Sweden to have been the worst hit, which is not the case. We can also see that Sweden’s response was similar to the UK in terms of flights, with there being no nationwide ban implemented. Instead, it was largely up to the private airlines, with the government merely advising against travel. Although the vast majority of Sweden’s flights have been grounded throughout the crisis, there wasn’t a total shutdown the likes of which seen in Germany. Looking across the globe, we can observe a number of other countries which didn’t impose full lockdown and have survived the pandemic relatively unscathed. These include Iceland, Japan and Taiwan. While it is difficult to compare countries with such different situations both politically and demographically to those in Europe, it sets the precedent that lockdown was not the only way to respond to the crisis.