ABSTRACT
This chapter traces how “lockdown” emerged as the dominant pandemic strategy through a specific scientific framing: the distinction between “suppression” and “mitigation” first set out in March 2020 in the influential ninth report of Imperial College London’s Covid-19 modelling team. The authors dissect the threshold logic underlying this framing, showing that there is no true suppression threshold and that outcomes in practice lie along a continuum. They explore paradoxical consequences of the suppression/mitigation dichotomy, the problem of diminishing returns, and the absence of credible “Plan B” strategies when suppression failed. Drawing on international examples, the chapter also discusses containment policies, arguing that they are worthwhile only where they are genuinely difficult to achieve. The analysis reveals how an initially narrow definition, coupled with early modelling authority, locked policy into a single strategic track – one that was neither inevitable nor always optimal.
