Chatham HouseVerified account

I disagree. Close down cities and areas where a virus is spreading. Contain it. When you close down countries, you trigger a wave of people un-necessarily traveling at the same time and exacerbating the spread.

While many countries were "closed" they were still rounding up their citizens from all over the world that were returning on crowded repatriation ships and flights.

If the goal is to contain a virus, contain it in the area it is spreading, but when you close down entire countries, people panic and start moving about, actually exacerbating the problem. WHO knew this.

In addition to spreading the virus by locking down entire countries, the economic carnage has been greater, than if it had just been contained to one area, while the rest of a country is still free to work and produce and make money.

Almost every country decided to cut off their nose to spite their face, even though World Health Organization warned them not to.

Additionally, in countries short on resources, like PPE, ventilators, tests, etc, if you lockdown just one area of the country, you can send all your supplies, tests and workers to that one area to address the problem, rather than overwhelm the healthcare of the entire country.