Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Bethell on 1 December (HL Deb, cols 717–21), what assessment they have made of the efficacy of lockdowns in preventing the transmission of COVID-19.
Evidence suggests that more stringent interventions tend to reduce the reproduction number of the virus.
The lockdown imposed in late March and the changes in behaviour that preceded this had a high level of uptake and resulted in a rapid reduction in the reproduction number ‘R’ from about 2.5-3.0 to about 0.5-0.7. That is a reduction in ‘R’ of about 2, or a reduction in transmission of 75%. We continue to review the efficacy of measures.