In the absence of the lockdown, the number of cases outside Hubei province would have been at least 65% higher and in Hubei province it would have been 53% higher On 23 January, China took an unprecedented step to contain a fast-spreading disease.
What seemed brutal at that point turned out to be a model for other countries in their fight against the novel coronavirus. If Wuhan, the origin of the outbreak, was not locked down, covid-19 cases would have been at least 50% higher in other cities of China, suggests research.
Hanming Fang and others in a National Bureau of Economic Research paper estimate the effect of restricting human mobility in delaying the transmission of the novel coronavirus.