It's a debate that has been on-going through the second wave of the pandemic.
Does a lockdown work?
Researchers at York University have crunched the numbers and they claim that measures put in place by the government, especially during the first wave of the pandemic, have had a substantial and positive impact on mitigating virus transmission.
Those measues include lockdowns, physical distancing and business closures.
The measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, reduced people's social contact rate, and altered who they were in contact with, which changed their mixing patterns.
For example, more people were at home and that disrupted the contacts they otherwise would have had in their workplace and in the community.
The study shows that individual contacts decreased from about 12 a day, to just under seven in a day. Household contacts increased by 50%.
Researchers also found that the susceptibility of the virus, increases with age.
For those who are 17 and younger, less than 3% become infected. But when you look at the senior age group, more than 50% become infected.
The researchers came to the conclusion that these findings can be used to plan a smart relaxation of measures, and for rotating workforce strategies.