Virus Transmission: COVID-19 Lockdowns Are Overrated

States began lifting their COVID-19 lockdowns more than a month ago, and so far the results have not been nearly as disastrous as many people predicted. By and large, according to estimates by two teams of researchers, virus transmission in Florida, Georgia, and Texas—three states with large populations that loosened their restrictions at the end of April—has either declined, stayed about the same, or risen slightly since then. Those numbers reinforce other evidence that broad business closure and stay-at-home orders deserve less credit for curtailing the epidemic than they commonly receive.