Background: China's Lockdown Policy

On 10 March 2020, the Chinese government declared victory over the Coronavirus, as the number of infections fell to only 17 per day. The death toll as of that day reached 3140 [2].

If the epidemy flares up again this could have been a premature self-celebration of the responsible government. Most importantly: If lockdown turns out not effective first time round, why should it fare differently the second time?

Herd Immunisation Policy

The United Kingdom announced a very different policy to China. The UK government assumes that the virus will return year after year. They intends to use a "herd immunisation" policy to reduce the speed of the spread of COVID-19. [3] The theory behind the policy: people of working age should contract and with their very high likelyhood recover from the virus.

As a consequence, the risk and speed of spread to the more endangered eldery population will be lowered. Further, the demage to the economy and therefor the supply of the population with food and goods will keep up better than with a lockdown policy.

Prediction

Will the Chinese policy have been successful in battling the outbreak or not, when we look at it at coming year end 2020?

Sources

1. "Coronavirus: China trumpets message of stability amid world turmoil as Beijing senses Covid-19 victory" - South China News, 10 March 2020
2. WHO Coronavirus Situation Report, 10 March 2020
3. "Britain goes it alone over coronavirus" - The Guardian, 15 March 2020