I was following the reporting coming out of China very early on, and remember many US health experts being quite skeptical of the Chinese approach to handling coronavirus. They were almost all highly critical of the heavy handed approach and openly speculated about the unintended consequences.
To be fair, it's praiseworthy to change one's opinions based on new evidence. However, the evidence being presented on the effectiveness of lockdowns is coming from an authoritarian regime with a less than stellar track record on openness and transparency.
I went back to the NYTimes archives to see how experts were reacting to the Chinese response back in late January. It sounds very different than what the same experts are saying now. I am not an expert on the history of disease, but I'm not aware of anyone in modern history attempting lockdowns on the scale we're seeing. The public health experts now advocating for this here, were openly skeptical when China tried. Why had the Chinese communist response now become the model for the world?
Let me be clear. I take this disease seriously and am on favor of a strong response. But I'm increasingly getting nervous that the experts don't have a long-term plan, and I'm shocked that there wasn't a more balanced approach proposed.