This really looks less like serious questioning and more like trolling.
But on the off chance that it's sincere:
1. Lombardy has had 13,272 coronavirus cases and 1,218 coronavirus deaths. This does not include deaths from other causes which were exacerbated by a lack of medical facilities.
2. The evidence from China is that social distancing and a heavy lockdown arrests the spread of the virus.
3. Seriously, this is on the front page of every newspaper website in the Western world. Asking for sources on this is like asking for a source on who won the Super Bowl.
It's completely sincere. I'm trying to make sense of it in both economic and health terms. And to do that, there seems to be plenty of nuances to sort through. I did a little research just now, and it appears that the success in China in curbing the outbreak was not in lock down measures, but in testing and quarantine. In an NPR interview, Bruce Aylward, assistant director general of WHO expounds on this:
"In short, it wasn't a lockdown everywhere. That's the wrong way to portray China's approach to the disease. And that's leading to some fundamental confusion and failure to do the right things."
Is Italy's decision to impose severe lockdown-like restrictions in vast swaths of its northern region the right approach?
Aylward says he's reluctant to comment specifically on Italy's decision because he's not familiar with the epidemiological data there. "One of the challenges with Italy right now is just the amount of data," he says. "They're just running so fast to catch up with the cases, it's difficult to understand what's driving the transmission. Because that's what you want to use to drive your strategy — what you cancel, what you suspend, etc. It should be driven by the way the virus is moving."
Still, Aylward says, there is indeed a threshold where it becomes necessary to impose major restrictions on movement. That happens when there is substantial "community-level transmission, where it's spreading in [so] many, many different environments, you can't even differentiate clusters." That's what occurred in Wuhan.
But even in those instances, says Aylward, it's crucial not to rely on restrictions of movement as the sole remedy. Public health authorities need to be prepared for a rebound in cases when movement restrictions are lifted and cases start to tick up again."
(
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/08/813401722/who-official-says-coronavirus-containment-remains-possible)
I'm not arguing a point. Simply had a question for the forum (is lockdown effective, especially considering the far-reaching implications?). And I'm glad I kept asking, because it appears that it may not be as effective as we would like to think and there's a huge price to pay when millions of families lose their income because of it. Worth it, IMO, if it's an effective measure. Terrible idea if it's not what will stem the tide. I like what Aylward said: you have to drive your strategy by in-depth understanding. And for in-depth understanding, you have to ask questions that might bring ire or that people think are foolish, I'd add.