Did Europe’s lockdowns work, and which countries got it right?

By Adam Vaughan

IN EARLY November, covid-19 cases in Europe were surging, accounting for almost half the world’s new cases and deaths. Now many in the region are emerging from a second round of lockdowns, including England on 2 December and soon France on 15 December. So how well did they work, and which countries got them right?

The restrictions imposed by most European nations were “fairly high”, says Thomas Hale at the University of Oxford, who runs a tracker on government responses to covid-19. Last week, most European nations scored more than 60 out of 100 points on …