My recollection is slightly different. The west did not consider lockdowns a viable strategy until the news started to come out of Italy of the scale of the dead. China might have used lockdowns first but it was Italy that changed minds on their acceptability for western countries.
> The west did not consider lockdowns a viable strategy until the news started to come out of Italy of the scale of the dead.
I think lockdowns were driven by politicians getting pressured and then scared and wanting to "do something", even without evidence that that "something" is necessary or will be effective against the problem.
We're spent decades planning for pandemics. I have contacts who've worked in that field, yet none of them recall plans ever including the need for lockdowns. Instead they report that plans assumed schools would be forced to close due to lack of healthy staff, not due to government mandate.
Then China started welding people in their apartments...[0]
