@mchill said===Defeating this virus requires vigilance, and consistent adherence to intelligent healthcare guidelines. ===
This is the price countries pay for mismanagement and complacency. Many countries have now experienced it in varying degrees, Defeating this virus requires vigilance, and consistent adherence to intelligent healthcare guidelines. Half steps will only prolong the problem.
Vigilance, consistent adherence to intelligent healthcare guidelines and a vaccine will work.
Vigilance, consistent adherence to intelligent healthcare guidelines without a vaccine will not work, except perhaps to delay things a bit.
A vaccine without vigilance and consistent adherence to intelligent healthcare guidelines will work.
See a trend?
The post that was quoted here has been removedMany of the tools China used to contain C-19 are not (and should not be) available in western countries. But yes, with extreme measures, C-19 can be contained without a vaccine. Use of those measures are unrealistic in the US and Europe.
If 90% of the people were immune, the virus would have so few targets that it would either die out or spread so slowly as to be practically invisible (this is the concept of herd immunity, which has become a curseword for some reason in leftist Twitter circles).
Regardless of what could or should have been done in the past, the only way for India, North America and Europe (and most of the rest of the world, for that matter) to really protect their populations is to vaccinate as many people as possible. Lockdowns, while possibly the only option in March of 2020 are, at this point, unnecessary and do more harm than good.