Last month, I wrote about the expert committee mandated by the German Bundestag to evaluate the effectiveness of lockdowns and other containment measures. While I was travelling, the report finally appeared. Its findings are less directly critical of containment than early leaks seemed to suggest, but they still constitute a quiet rejection of signature Merkel-era policies.

Lockdowns, the report claims, work only at the beginning of an outbreak; as people become tired and cooperation declines, they lose their effectiveness. Test requirements targeting the unvaccinated reduced infections in the beginning, but became less effective as vaccine protection against infection waned. Whether or not school closures accomplished anything, is allegedly unclear, but the report is stridently certain that masks are super effective, at least when worn correctly.

As I said last month, this is a political document, intended to set the parameters for future containment policy in Germany. Its empirical findings aren’t to be taken seriously, but from its pages we can nevertheless learn important things.