The lockdown as implemented by Italy and France aims at slowing down the spreading of the virus. It is not meant as a strategy to overcome the virus. It is meant to flatten the curve of the exponential growth of infection to minimize overloading the health system and to provide more time for preparation and for the acquisition of best practices regarding the situation. There is no disillusion that this might somehow stop the virus. The expected total infected percentage of population, with lockdowns is still in the range of 50-60%. Italy went into lockdown on March 9th when # of new cases reached 1791 and total deaths was 463. This does not seem to qualify as a very drastic early lockdown, as stated by parent.

Given everything we know regarding exponential spread, the high percentage of cases requiring icu treatment, and the mortality rate, I fail to see how the absence of any measures to mitigate the spreading of the virus makes sense.

The assumption that there are only two viable strategies, lockdown & no measures, is a plain wrong oversimplification. There is a wide range of intermediary steps that can be taken in between to attempt to slow down the virus.

Attempting to minimize the degree of overload on the health system by applying such measures in a coordinated fashion is meant to reduce casualties caused by system overload.