Economics: Why The Lockdowns Are A Success Story

 (Drivebycuriosity) -  There is a wave of protests against the severe COVID-19 lockdowns, often aggressively. People respond to imploding economies and extremely jumping jobless numbers. Some influencers claim that the lockdowns are unnecessary and do harm the economies without reason.

 (cnbc  )

The virus jumps from person to person, it needs an intact chain to spread. Lockdowns, combined with social distancing & wearing masks, are trapping many of the viruses inside their hosts and are breaking many chains. The lockdowns cut many virus chains and slowed the globalpandemic significantly - especially in Europe (chart above, Europe: green, US: dark blue, Latin America: yellow ).

 ( worldometers )

Italy was the first country in Europe, which was hit had - and responded earlier than other countries in the West (wikipedia). On 9 March 2020, the government of Italy under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte imposed a national quarantine, restricting the movement of the population except for necessity, work, and health circumstances, in response to the growing pandemic of COVID-19 in the country. Additional lockdown restrictions mandated the temporary closure of non-essential shops and businesses.

As a result the number of new cases peaked already around March 20 and has been falling since then (chart above).

 ( worldometers )



The federal states in Germany (Bundesstaaten) started the lockdowns separately late in March and step-by-step (wikipedia ). The numbers of new cases peaked around April 2 and have been sinking since then.

 ( worldometers)

Austria imported the virus from Italy and suffered an explosive growth of coronavirus cases in the first half of March. Austria`s government shut down must not necessary activities on March 16 (kurier ). The number of new cases peaked around March 26 and has been dropping since then.

 (twitter )

In the US the federal states started the lockdowns separately in the second half of March and the number of new cases peaked in late April (cnbc  ).  In Manhattan where I live are many restaurants - and even some pubs - open for take-out & home-delivery. The streets in my neighborhoods - Lower East Side, East Village & Soho - have still plenty of strollers and joggers.

(  tracker)


The lockdowns are accompanied by imploding economies and jumping jobless numbers. But the economies would have tanked anyway because people are scared. If the governments wouldn`t have locked down, the economies would have shut down by voluntary behaviour by people who want to protect themselves against the coronavirus. In Europe & in the US factories and shops got closed because employees tested positive for the virus or stayed sick at home (driveby). In the US federal state Georgia, spending fell and many small businesses closed before the official “stay-at-home” order ( chart above).  

Now the reduced and falling numbers of new cases, hospitalizations & deaths in many countries and US states make a cautious reopening of the economies possible, supported by strict social distancing and wearing masks ( reuters). The lockdowns are a success story.