Sure, but how much? How much is due to the lockdown, and how much was simple hygiene, awareness, and staying home when you are sick?
It would be be incredibly foolish (indeed, demonstrably wrong) to say there is no contribution from the later things.
It's easy and logical to assume that the lock down is the thing that did all the wonders, but where is the direct A/B comparison data to actually prove it? (and no, don't compare different countries)
Absolutely, the same applies to all of those things, how do you really know which action contributed by how much? It stands to reason that if someone is isolated then they will not contract a virus or spread it to someone else, but how much do less drastic methods help? It's very difficult to know, it's not like we can really have a large control group that does nothing, and various groups that try different methods.
No matter what we do to slow the spread, if it works, it will appear to many that it was not necessary. I certainly don't have all the answers, I thought the whole thing was hype until I saw the dramatically increasing infection numbers.
Also let's not forget that something like >40% of the population were not isolated and in lockdown (I've seen numbers up to 50%). Everyone might feel like the entire country/city is in lockdown and no one is going out, but there are massive amounts of "essential" workers who's lives didn't change apart from increased hygiene and "social distancing".
It's a shame we may never have real concrete numbers on this because I fear that governments will do lock downs again at the drop of a hat, and if that's based on incomplete or just assumed data, then that's bad.
You will get no argument from me on the challenges that need to be met. We
do know how to answer many of those questions with regard to what works and doesn't work, but we can't ever run those experiments because they are immoral, unethical and illegal - and we all know that.
I don't know what "assumed data" are. The data are the data and the data, so long as they are not simply faked, are always right- I so believe. Our analyses, understanding and interpretation of the data, however, are frequently wrong.
Data we are collecting now will be analyzed for decades and by many people. What I think I can ask is for Governments to make evidence-based decisions - and obviously with consultation with scientists. When it is clear that the evidence is insufficient for some desirable / acceptable level of confidence, there is still the burden of making a decision, even if it is to do nothing. Since none of these decisions are without cost (including doing nothing), they will be scrutinized for many years. Hopefully, correct consequences can be attributed to the decisions, but as pointed out already, that is not so easy in many cases. Still, we need to try.
Well into Covid-19 we were being told that there was no point in wearing face masks - even to the extent that some said you would actually enhance your chance of infection wearing one (apparently because you were more likely to touch your face). How do you think that "decision" will be scored? Admittedly, I have not seen irrefutable evidence that wearing the typical cheap face mask has any significant effect on the likelihood of infection. Once we know, however, that the virus can spread through droplets (cough / sneeze / say and spray), do we need to run the experiment to have some level of confidence that if you are infected (symptomatic or asymptomatic) it is beneficial to wear a face mask to mitigate spreading your virus-filled droplets?
I know that some have said that the early decision to not recommend wearing masks was for other reasons (i.e., leaving no masks for critical workers), but that is hardly being truthful and it made little or no sense or, was downright disingenuous and hiding a different problem.
Then, it all changed and many places in the US that are open, now do not allow entry without a face covering. I think it is the correct decision and delaying that decision was costly - but I can't prove that, at least not yet.
I was scrolling through this list of the top 20 epidemics / pandemics
https://www.livescience.com/worst-epidemics-and-pandemics-in-history.html and thinking about where we stand in regard to handling them.
I am afraid that we don't always seem to do so well, but we are getting better as we learn more and more.
HIV/AIDS is a good example. Today, people with AIDS do not have to die from AIDS. For quite a while, that was simply not true. But, it has taken many years to advance our knowledge to that point. Progress is painfully slow. Slower if we abandon the pursuit of knowledge.