The theories from the Government as to why we were locked down and currently in the Red setting was to reduce the number of hospitalisations and deaths.

There is some new research that suggests it may not have been effective.

New research from the Washington Times on lockdowns in Europe and the US found lockdowns had little to no impact at reducing Covid 19 deaths during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 - in fact it only reduced mortality by 0.2%.

It found no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings had any noticeable effect - but did have devastating effect on economic activity, unemployment, schooling, domestic violence, among many other social ills.

Report co-author Jonas Herby is a special advisor at the Centre for Political Studies in Copenhagen and joined Mike Hosking.

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