"Why, then, are we locked into lockdowns? In part, because of the way the virus initially spread. Had the outbreak started in, say, Norway or Canada – a country, in other words, where immobilising the entire population was unthinkable – things would have worked out very differently. But because China thinks nothing of detaining people, and because Italy, which had planned a local quarantine, was panicked into extending it nationwide when the news leaked, lockdowns suddenly became the Thing To Do – and the policy which the Something Must Be Done crowd demanded. "