Pooled models justified lockdowns

A Nature study inferred infections from deaths across 11 European countries and used partial pooling to estimate that non‑pharmaceutical interventions—especially national lockdowns—pushed Rt below 1 by early May 2020. The model assumed immediate behavior shifts at intervention dates and fixed fatality rates, attributing most transmission reduction to lockdowns. — It shows how early modeling choices translated into sweeping public policy and why revisiting those assumptions matters for future epidemic response.