1) Lockdowns are not a magic wandLockdowns do not make a country’s cases disappear - unless that country is New Zealand - but they should help flatten the curve of cases, said Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India, and a member of the Indian Council for Medical Research’s (ICMR’s) Task Force on surveillance and research.
The government initially claimed that the lockdown was necessary to stop cases. VK Paul who heads the government’s covid task force memorably presented a slide that showed the number of cases in India hitting zero by 16 May at a press conference on 24 April.
Later, the government came around to restricting its claim to say that the lockdown lowered cases compared to what they could have.