I don’t think anyone questions the effectiveness when we literally didn’t know how Covid spread or how to treat it and our hospitals were getting overwhelmed.
The question is if they’re a useful endgame tool, after we have testing and treatments and vaccines. Absent the authoritarian measures China is deploying, the answer appears to be no: enough people skirt the rules to permit community spread.
I doubt any researcher believes our response was completely optimal or that US lockdowns would have ever eliminated COVID.
So allowing controlled spread after a successful vaccination campaign while avoiding overwhelming hospitals was the long term strategy if vaccination never hit herd immunity. Yes, we had strings like mask mandates last winter, but public schools where open almost everywhere even as the number of new cases spiked to unprecedented levels. The core difference was the dramatic reduction in hospitalization rates meant the healthcare system could cope with a spike of that magnitude.
The question is if they’re a useful endgame tool, after we have testing and treatments and vaccines. Absent the authoritarian measures China is deploying, the answer appears to be no: enough people skirt the rules to permit community spread.