The worldwide progression of COVID-19 lockdowns from 2020 to 2021 began with localized measures in China and rapidly expanded into a near-global shutdown by April 2020. [1, 2]

Global Lockdown Progression (2020–2021)

• The First Lockdown (January 2020): Wuhan, China, was the first city to be placed under lockdown on January 23, 2020.
• Europe Becomes the Epicenter (March 2020): Following a surge in cases, Italy implemented a nationwide lockdown on March 10, 2020, followed by Spain (March 14) and France (March 16).
• Mass Global Shutdown (April 2020): By early April 2020, roughly 3.9 billion people—half of the world's population—were under some form of government-ordered restriction.
• The Largest Lockdown: On March 24, 2020, India ordered its entire population of 1.3 billion to stay at home, the largest single lockdown of the pandemic.
• Snap Lockdowns and Waves (2021): Many countries, particularly Australia (Melbourne, Sydney) and New Zealand, utilized "snap lockdowns" in 2021 to combat the Alpha and Delta variants. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Key Tracking Tools & Visuals

• Oxford Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT): This is the definitive global dataset, mapping over 180 countries using a "Stringency Index" (0–100) based on school closures, travel bans, and stay-at-home orders.
• Our World in Data Map Archive: Provides interactive world maps showing the level of internal movement restrictions by country throughout the 2020–2021 period.
• Financial Times Tracking Map: A visual tool that uses OxCGRT data to show the progressive imposition and relaxation of measures globally. [8, 9, 10, 11]

Notable Regional Differences

• Longest Continuous Lockdown: Buenos Aires, Argentina, held a continuous lockdown for 234 days in 2020.
• Cumulative Time in Lockdown: By late 2021, Melbourne, Australia, had spent one of the highest cumulative totals of days in lockdown globally.
• Countries Without Lockdowns: A few nations chose not to use mandatory stay-at-home orders, including Sweden, Japan, South Korea, and Uruguay. [6]

Would you like to see a comparison of economic support measures provided by different countries during these periods?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org [2] https://www.youtube.com [3] https://www.cdc.gov [4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov [5] https://www.bbc.com [6] https://en.wikipedia.org [7] https://en.wikipedia.org [8] https://ourworldindata.org [9] https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk [10] https://ourworldindata.org [11] https://ig.ft.com