The Wuhan lockdown clearly worked insofar as it stopped the exponential spread of the epidemic in the short term, saving millions of lives throughout China and

The Wuhan lockdown clearly worked insofar as it stopped the exponential spread of the epidemic in the short term, saving millions of lives throughout China and by now allowing temporary hospitals to empty, overworked imported medical staff to return home, transportation networks to restart, etc. Over the coming months economic activity should slowly ramp up (already has in most of the country), hopefully without restarting widespread community spread of the virus. Yes this is an extremely economically painful kind of response, more or less pausing all economic activity for months. But if the alternative is the death of >1% of the population, all drowning alone at home while the overwhelmed medical system collapses, it’s hard to counterfactually guess at the relative effects on the economy.