Lockdown Look Back

Those of us who work in the industry may have heard of a retrospective or look back, which is simply a meeting where a team shares what went well, what could be improved, or insufferable. It aims to learn from recent experiences so any severe concern or otherwise doesn't go unresolved. That is the idea anyway; what happens, in reality, depends on many factors.

Inspired by recent events, I wanted to finalise my analysis on COVID-19 with a particular focus on lockdowns. As I shared in a previous article, I have lived in three countries since the COVID-19 pandemic. I left New Zealand abruptly due to the sudden closure of borders. I remember the two connection flights amid the chaos before finally boarding a plane that would take me to beautiful London, where I waited for a repatriation flight. The experience I went through and the panic I felt and witnessed shall not be forgotten soon.

I landed in London on a Monday afternoon, and the repatriation flight was scheduled for the morning of the next day. Chaotic as it was, I stayed awake with two masks on and gloves and set out to read the news on my phone. Whilst I knew that Australia wanted to close borders, a lot more had happened during the time (~ 24hours) I was travelling from one country to another. New Zealand announced the lockdown, which meant I left just in time. Malta had just closed its borders and was moving into a partial lockdown. When I landed in London, there were no restrictions like I saw in the other countries. However, when I got to Gatwick and was en route on a bus to Heathrow, the driver announced that this was the last bus between the airports until further notice. Before I checked the news, I thought, "what are the odds of that happening?" only later did I find out that England was also going into lockdown. The second I set foot on the plane towards Malta, I was relieved to go home during these unprecedented times.

Lockdowns were controversial throughout. Some people loved them, and others suffered terribly. Business fell while others prospered, and new ones were launched. Mental health and relationships were pushed to the edge. During the longest lockdown, I spent a good five months alone in London 2020-2021. It was not easy, but upon looking at the data, I understood, and I tried to make it count.

As part of this Lockdown Look Back, I wanted to share some insights into lockdown causes. I repeat that I do not intend to convince anyone of anything, least of which on the choice to get vaccinated. However, I do want to finish the story that the data tells and hope to address the question:

We have a lot more cases than we did when we were forced into lockdown back in 2020. Do they know what they are doing?

The answer is "In general, yes!". Many times it wasn't clear that "Lockdown is not a response to the number of cases but rather a response to the cases that require hospital treatment", and once we look at the data, it should (if I do my job well) become clear.

Firstly, I wanted to continue where I left off in the previous article. I updated Figure 3 in the last article with the latest data until the 6th of May 2022.

Figure 1: % Positive COVID-19 cases per population.

As evident in the above graph, the situation in NZ worsened before it started to improve. Malta and the United Kingdom are doing much better, but all three countries have experienced a considerably larger number of cases than March 2020. So why weren't lockdowns imposed again?

**For the rest of the article, I had to leave NZ out of the analysis because data on the number of COVID patients admitted to the hospital or ICU was not made public. Up to the time of writing, I had asked three different sources, but the only way to get access to the data perhaps was to make a formal request to the Ministry of Health. I decided against it, and thus I shall continue comparing Malta and the UK only.

The period and duration of the lockdowns for each country are displayed in Figure 2 below. The timeline source includes the dates when each restriction was imposed in the UK and eventually lifted. Similarly, in Malta, different sources described the occurrences in different ways. I limited the below graph to represent the period for which the strictest restrictions were in place, i.e. lockdowns in the UK and partial lockdowns in Malta.

Figure 2: Lockdown timelines for Malta and UK.

Figure 2 has dates ranging from mid-March 2020 until around May 2021. The UK had three official lockdowns during that time, excluding the Tier system. It began in March 2020 and lasted until around June. The second lockdown lasted for a month in November. Soon after, the longest lockdown started subtly in December 2020 through Tiers and came into full effect in January 2021 until around March 2021. Malta never had full lockdowns. Instead, the Maltese suffered around three months of partial lockdown between March and June 2020 and another month that ended in April 2021.

Most of us probably recall that the number of positive cases increased towards December 2021. While some were hinting or expecting a lockdown, it never came. The year 2021 saw a vaccine rollout which, regardless of how each of us feels towards it, has helped in avoiding lockdowns, and here is how.

The two graphs below show that the lockdowns were enforced when hospitalisations increased. For each chart, compare the peaks with the blue and red blocks periods in Figure 2.

Figure 3: % COVID-19 patients in Hospital per Population.

Figure 4: % COVID-19 patients in ICU per population.

The above two graphs demonstrate ratios, the number of cases per population, that would show how many COVID-19 hospitalisations for every 100 citizens. Since I think the ICU graph for Malta may be misleading, I plot the actual numbers below. Note that since there is a massive difference between the two countries' populations, by selecting Malta on the top right legend, one can see the numbers properly for the country.

**A double-click on Malta or one-click on the UK will hide the UK series from the graph.

Figure 5: Number of COVID-19 patients in the Hospital.

Figure 6: Number of COVID-19 patients in ICU.

Comparing Figures 3 and 4 with Figure 2 shows that the three lockdowns coincided with high peaks of hospitalisations in the UK, especially those in the ICU. Indeed, while there are still COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital, there has been a considerable drop. On the other hand, Malta seems to have taken the preventative approach in March 2020. While the cases in hospitals increased, the second lockdown was only imposed when the number of patients exceeded a certain capacity of hospital admissions.

The pandemic put a lot of strain on medical resources and professionals. Consequently, hospitals had to reschedule other treatments and surgeries later, some without a tentative date. Diseases went undetected because the public had limited access to specialists. Medical conditions were left untreated because patients were afraid to go to a doctor, knowing that the health professionals may have been in contact with a COVID patient.

Letting people catch the virus may be acceptable, like the flu (to a certain extent). Still, once a large portion of the population requires hospital treatments, to the point that health professionals would need to choose who to treat and otherwise was a risk that many countries had the potential to face. Of course, if the governments were comfortable taking that action, none of us would have been locked down, but at what cost?

Regardless of how one feels about the vaccine, it has undeniably helped us move forward and regain our freedom. It has given people who decided to get vaccinated a chance to survive the virus if they catch it. Worth mentioning, for the sake of being correct, that other conditions are in play that determine the % of chance that a person has to beat the virus. Not everyone responded the same way, which is why everyone makes their own choice. I will not get into or convince anyone to take the vaccine or otherwise. I discuss here the story that the data communicates through numbers, whether we want to hear it or not.

The data gathered from the source shows that the only reason most of us can enjoy a nice meal at a restaurant, a holiday with loved ones, fewer restrictions on masks or, in some cases, no restrictions is because the hospitals are now able to operate better, under somewhat more normal circumstances. Based on the information and my understanding, only two things could have made this possible. Global herd immunity, which I believe would have taken years to achieve naturally and at the cost of a lot of lives, or a vaccine that would help hasten the process. The ultimate answer may be evident in the graphs I've shown, or it has yet to reveal itself... in time.