Agree that the US is doing a half-baked lockdown (being generous), inconsistently, and is opening up far too soon. However, looking at the data, the death rate

Agree that the US is doing a half-baked lockdown (being generous), inconsistently, and is opening up far too soon. However, looking at the data, the death rate is only increasing; recent weekly series starting 06-April is: 3.0%, 4.1%, 5.4%, 5.7%, to 5.8% yesterday. This is actually low, since today's case count is the wrong denominator, as it has a certain amount of deaths built-in but not counted and this is still in a growth phase. Using [deaths]/[cases_on_day_-7] produces the most consistent numbers for a death rate of about 7.1%. Neither the changes in contagion rate nor death rate, even with the half-baked lockdowns, even approximate support for your contention that lockdowns do not work. They in fact support the opposite conclusion, even half-baked measures reduce the spread, and better measures would be better. The best are proper full testing coverage, tracking, and targeted isolation, as implemented well by South Korea. As to your contention about the contagiousness, it is known that it is not nearly contagious as, say Measles, but is more contagious than Flu.