Of course they don't kill the virus, but they absolutely do work if your definition of success isn't sufficiently pedantic to mean "this strategy eliminated the virus completely". They reduce the dr/dt of infections, giving you time to prep and actually save people's lives when they do get infected. "Lockdowns don't solve anything" should be lumped into the same category of advice as "masks don't solve anything". Both statements are true IFF your definition of "solve" is "virus is over with this one neat trick".
The stated goal by my State's (Ohio) government is "widen the curve", meaning to spread out the peak of the infection rate to a longer period of time so hospitals don't get overwhelmed.
Note that can doesn't mean it will. If everybody in the world stuck to their own small family house (not extended family) for four weeks it would be gone, either your family had it (with some deaths because of lack of medical care),kicked it, and everything on surfaces died; or it wasn't in your family and you were safe. Of course few people can do that. You need not only stored food, but also there will be nobody running the power plants (and it will take them two weeks to restart them afterwards), not to mention hospitals won't be there for other emergencies.
Folks, we're all data-oriented people I get it. But it strains credulity that we're suspending our logical faculties for how viruses actually work.
I wonder with every expert around claiming that it takes at least 15 days for an action to cause an effect, why is it that the growth in the number of cases only started to slow down a couple of days ago?
The last figures people were given in the UK was you can incubate for 7 days then get sick for 7 days, which is why people were told to self-isolate for 14 days if someone in their household got sick.
If that's true then you'd expect to see a drop in case numbers just one week after a full lockdown.
> Most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days
Honestly, I took the 15 days from memory. There are plenty of sources citing anything on that range.
Keep in mind that after incubation a person will start to show weak symptoms, that get strong gradually. Hospitals will only notice a change after the week or so (from memory, there was a good interview with a Chinese doctor here a few weeks ago) that it takes for people to get really sick.
Our gov’s plan was do no testing and just sort of hope it infected everyone so we’d have herd immunity but somehow without killing too many people.
The virus had other plans
Buying a week or less isn't worth the damage to the economy.
2. There's every reason to believe that a lockdown significantly cuts down R, even to below 1, thus buying a lot more than a week. It certainly did in Wuhan. Instead of griping about the economy, why don't we actually work on measures that will let us leave lockdown?
It's a global epidemic now, Wuhan isn't safe. What measures will really let us leave lockdown, other than hunting down and isolating (or worse...) infected world-wide?
Have you been anywhere with lockdown as it was being ramped up? I don't know where those right thinking people are, but even after everything-except-the-stay-at-home order in WA (i.e. everything closed and a recommendation to stay home including freakin signs on the highway), everything that was open was extremely crowded, from the park near my home to any restaurant with takeout nearby benches or a park, to hiking trails. We went out, a trailhead was literally the most crowded I've seen it in my 8 years here by far (Little Si trail, the big overflow-overflow parking lot was almost full). That is WITH lockdown and constant media fear mongering. Without lockdown it would be even (from my position) better. I was working thoughout the week, but even with stay at home order and parking lots gated, someone told me there are tons of people on weekdays out on popular trails, parking on nearby roads and walking in, and I applaud this civil disobedience. Right thinking people would go out and live their lives.
We also have a historical example of Spanish flu that did nothing to economy even in medium term.
We do neither of these.
But that is just the beginning.
The real effective tool is tracking down where the infected person had been by examining cell records, credit card records, interviews and determine where the infected person had been at for a few days before infection was confirmed.
Once the recent movements of an infected person is compiled, the list of location/time is blasted out via app and also main stream media.
This public disclosure is important as infected person might have visited a mall or a theater, making it impossible to contact each of possible contacts individually. Big malls/theaters have closed for a few days after a visit by an infected person is found. After deep cleaning of a few days, it reopens.
Some articles that explain better are below.
How Korea got a fast start with testing for coronavirus: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testin...
Extensive contact tracing has slowed viral spread in Korea: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00740-y
But all of above is possible only with a lot of testing, free when ordered by a doctor due to possible exposure.