That's true. We missed our chance to contain it early on, thanks to those that tried to spare the economy at the cost of 'a few lives' which has now harmed our economy for a much longer period than an initial effort at containment would have caused, not to mention that at that time we didn't know exactly how bad it would get (it could have been a lot worse than it was).
But reducing the amount of active infections does have a beneficial effect because even though everyone will likely be exposed that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody will also get the disease (even the the worst diseases viral do not necessarily spread to 100% of the population), and there some chance that later strains may become milder. And if fewer people are ill at the same time that should increase the level of care available.
> We missed our chance to contain it early on, thanks to those that tried to spare the economy at the cost of 'a few lives'
Illusion of control. The chance was never there. Even countries who are way more suitable for isolation like australia didn't manage to keep the virus out. Attributing that to "those that tried to spare the economy" is just another toxic blame game.
They didn't manage because the rest of us fucked up.
It's like a fire. If your house is the only house in a row of houses that is well prepared against fire then you're going to go down, in spite of all of your preparations.
The fatalism that many people exhibit is a self fulfilling prophesy: we won't be able to do it so we're not even going to try. But you know what? Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and China showed that it is possible.
But reducing the amount of active infections does have a beneficial effect because even though everyone will likely be exposed that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody will also get the disease (even the the worst diseases viral do not necessarily spread to 100% of the population), and there some chance that later strains may become milder. And if fewer people are ill at the same time that should increase the level of care available.
But it's a rearguard action at this point.