On 23 March 2020, more than 27 million people in the UK were glued to their TV screens as prime minister Boris Johnson gave a once-in-a-lifetime address. Looking directly at the camera, he told the nation: "You must stay at home."

But behind this firm message, the government was divided over the correct response to Covid-19. Other countries, like Italy and Germany, had locked down in the weeks before, but Johnson had resisted the move.

He believed that the mindset of the British people was too libertarianA political philosophy that stresses personal freedom above all else. to tolerate the government ordering them to stay in. And he was being told by some of his advisers that sweeping lockdown measures would be impossible to enforce in the long run. It would be better, they argued, to "nudge"¹ people into better hygiene.

But some of his ministers thought this was madness. More than 3,000 cases of Covid-19 had already been detected in the UK. If the virus continued to spread at this rate, the NHSThe National Health Service, the publicly funded healthcare system in the UK. The NHS was founded in 1948. would be overwhelmed.

Johnson and his advisers were soon proved wrong: people were remarkably tolerant of even the longest lockdowns. Studies found that more than 90% of the public obeyed the rules for most of the first lockdown.

But the memory of the lockdowns remains bitter for one part of the population. Many Conservative members felt they were a betrayal of their core principles.

Some suspect that is why Rishi Sunak² has suddenly announced that he had opposed lockdown behind the scenes. He claims that as chancellor of the ExchequerThe chancellor of the Exchequer, often just called the chancellor, is the UK government's chief finance minister. They are in charge of taxation and government spending and borrowing. , he was prevented from raising concerns about the negative impacts of the lockdowns.

Others who were working in Downing Street10 Downing Street, in central London, has been the official home of the UK prime minister since 1735.  at the time have dismissed Sunak's claim. But the controversy has reignited the row over whether or not the lockdowns were worth it.

Critics of lockdowns point out the huge damage that they did to people's lives. At the start of this year, 22,500 people had been waiting more than two years for routine surgerySurgery that happens frequently and thus carries a low risk.. Many will have died as a result.

The economic impact was also grave. It is estimated that small businesses altogether lost £126.6bn as a result of the lockdown and many were forced to close.

Education took one of the biggest hits. Children missed lessons and had to rely on homeschooling. Two whole school years could not have their exams fairly graded. Private schools saw their marks shoot up well above the state sector.

But others think this is all irrelevant. Without the lockdown, they argue, the NHS would have collapsed. People would not have dared go for surgery or even to restaurants and bars, for fear of catching the virus. Courts and schools would still have slowed to a stop as lawyers and teachers were knocked out by the virus. The effects would have been the same.

The problem, they argue, was that the government failed to bring Covid-19 under control with more targeted measures, like the test and traceA strategy for managing disease transmission that focuses on frequent testing, isolating those who test positive, and encouraging those who have come into contact with them to test as well. system. We could have avoided all these problems if they had been better prepared.

Yes: Without lockdowns, the healthcare system would have been overwhelmed. All other impacts pale in comparison with that. For the UK to be unable to provide healthcare to its citizens is simply unthinkable.

No: We cannot know for sure that hospitals would have been overwhelmed without a lockdown. And even if the short-term damage had been greater, it would have been better in the long run.

Or... Other countries, like South Korea³, limited the spread of Covid with more targeted measures. The UK could have avoided lockdowns and controlled the virus if the government had developed a working test and trace system.