I keep wondering about this. On balance I am a supporter of lockdown but I have about a billion questions on it and I'd like to know if it's as clear cut as sometimes made out.
For example, I've wondered if lockdown is helping more deadly mutations. As I understand it, usually what happens in a viral pandemic is that ill people stay at home and mildly sick people go about their lives and infect others, favouring the milder strain. (In 1918 this didn't happen, as very ill soldiers were shipped out to field hospitals, spreading the disease). Lockdown presumably also restricts this effect. Now this is probably a "noob" question that has been factored in by scientists, but it would be nice to know the answer.
What I'd really like to see is a scientifically literate journalist sit down with someone like Chris Whitty and spend a couple of hours calmly going through the modelling, the scenarios, the different approaches, the confidence levels and so on to get an understanding of how the decisions are made. If this has happened, I've missed it. I think I've mentioned before that I have tried to watch some of the press conferences but there are only so many household objects I can throw at the TV
Originally Posted by: pfw