Yes. We did not understand the virus but it was novel.
We know it's not 'flu now. But we should also remember that this is a viral epidemic and that just 2 years ago 'flu had a 50,000 excess mortality in the UK. Fear and anxiety is out of control. The lockdown itself is damaging.
We need a means of controlling the epidemic until it has run its course. That's all the lockdown was ever designed to do but it is is extremely inefficient. Testing and quarantining the infected is an obvious way forward.
What I would like to know is what is capping the virus growth across the world? Many of the epidemics seem to turn around like clockwork even when antibody rates are quite low. In New York they've been doing antibody testing and found that in many zip-codes in the Bronx antibody rates are at ~40%, and there's one part of Brooklyn where it's at 45% but generally speaking the antibody rates are much lower. The UK briefing put it at 6.78% for the UK. Does that mean that only 6.78% of people have had the virus? Do people like children, or asymptomatics generate antibodies? I have heard they do but if that's the case I don't see why the epidemics are receding across Europe when measured immunity is so low.
Perhaps it is a combination of many factors. I hope one is not seasonality because that implies it could return.
There are many impoverished nations whose economies are too weak to sustain lockdowns. People question their reporting but you cannot hide mass death. It is a mystery as to why with one or two exceptions that Western Europe is one of the worst affected regions and that the undeveloped world has not done so badly. Perhaps it is too soon to say. I think maybe Covid19 is an illness that overwhelms weakened immune systems and if you think about it is the 'top-heavy' (age) in advanced societies.
