Lockdowns and Suppression: Was it? Will it have been worth it?

The UK Government has not carried out an Impact Assessment of its Coronavirus policies. Such assessments are a normal part of Government policy formation and Ministers are expected to personally sign off policies as cost beneficial. This short paper considers a high level assessment of the kind that normally would have been produced (and could have been produced rapidly) before the introduction of the suppression or ‘lockdown’ policy on the 23rd March. The issue at question is the relative benefits of the mitigation policy, which was the standing Government pandemic policy until March 2020, compared with those of the ‘lockdown’ or suppression policy actually adopted in that month. It shows that all unquantifiable and the net quantifiable benefits favour the abandoned mitigation policy. Further it shows that an economically rational decision maker would have chosen the mitigation strategy, over’ lockdown’ even in March 2020.