Available retrospective evidence and mainstream public discourse do not line up with Sacks’s prediction that Omicron-era hindsight would show that lockdowns “didn’t work at all,” or that broad lockdowns were largely ineffective and only delayed, rather than prevented, harm.

1. Empirical studies generally find non‑trivial effects of lockdown‑type measures. Multiple observational studies in the U.S. report that stay‑at‑home orders reduced COVID‑19 case growth and deaths, with statistically significant declines in incidence and mortality while orders were in force.(pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) Analyses of European non‑pharmaceutical interventions likewise conclude that partial or full lockdowns, together with school closures and travel restrictions, reduced cases and deaths compared with counterfactual scenarios without such measures.(archpublichealth.biomedcentral.com) Summaries of the literature (e.g., the COVID‑19 lockdowns and Non‑pharmaceutical intervention overview articles) characterize lockdowns as somewhat effective for reducing transmission and deaths, especially when implemented early and stringently, not as ineffective.(en.wikipedia.org)

2. Meta‑analysis critical of lockdowns still finds they did reduce mortality, and its conclusions are contested. The high‑profile meta‑analysis by Herby, Jonung and Hanke (now in Public Choice) finds that spring‑2020 lockdowns in Europe and the U.S. reduced COVID‑19 mortality by roughly 3–10.7%, thousands to tens of thousands of deaths, and argues that these health benefits were small relative to the economic and social costs.(link.springer.com) That paper has been heavily criticized by epidemiologists and fact‑checking outlets for methodology and interpretation, and is treated as one viewpoint in an ongoing debate rather than a new consensus that “lockdowns didn’t work.”(theguardian.com)

3. Official retrospective inquiries and mainstream expert commentary generally affirm that lockdowns saved lives, while acknowledging they mainly ‘bought time’ and had serious harms. The 2025 UK Covid‑19 Inquiry report—one of the most prominent post‑hoc assessments—concludes that national lockdowns “undoubtedly saved lives” and estimates that locking down about a week earlier in March 2020 could have reduced first‑wave deaths in England by nearly half, on the order of 23,000 lives.(thetimes.com) UK scientists and reviews similarly argue that, despite major social and health costs and limited certainty over exact effect sizes, early, shorter, better‑targeted lockdowns and other NPIs did reduce transmission and mortality, and they call for “smarter” alternatives in future pandemics—not because lockdowns failed entirely, but because they were a blunt, costly tool.(theguardian.com)

4. Public discourse after Omicron is mixed and polarized, not uniformly aligned with ‘lockdowns didn’t work at all.’ There is a strong anti‑lockdown current—economists and commentators arguing that benefits were small and costs large, often amplifying the Herby et al. findings.(fortune.com) But substantial expert and media commentary across the political spectrum frames lockdowns as having bought time for health‑system preparedness and vaccines and as reducing deaths, especially in early waves, while criticizing their collateral damage and late or poorly designed implementation.(en.wikipedia.org) That is not the same as an emerging consensus that they were broadly ineffective.

Taken together, the post‑Omicron evidence and discourse support a more nuanced position: lockdowns and similar restrictions were effective but costly and blunt, with effects that were often to delay and reduce rather than to permanently prevent spread. Sacks’s stronger prediction—that retrospective analysis would broadly conclude lockdowns “didn’t work at all” or were largely ineffective—is not borne out, so this prediction is best judged wrong.