I think you may have misunderstood the point of lockdowns.
Lockdowns are/were intended to prevent jamming hospitals with COVID patients which would lead to non-COVID emergencies being put at risk.
The idea is to lockdown an area not to STOP, but to SLOW the trickle of new patients into hospitals at a rate they can be serviced: e.g., balancing the pipeline. In anticipation of the huge surges seen in the North East US, many hospitals built-out their capacity but didn't need it. Thankfully, and hopefully they will not.
As for "natural repercussions," the different phased-reopening plans that governors are drawing up all share the same thing: let's try opening a little, and if the cases shoot up again, lock down if hospitals are at risk of overflowing. We just don't have a national policy, it is patchworks of different state alliances.
It was the best idea at the time, and we all know the only other proposed solution was to NOT lock down and let those who are susceptible pay the price. Some people on the news vocally approved of that idea, most people did not according to surveys.
New Zealand is interesting because it's an island (2+, really), mostly rural, relatively isolated from the world, and caught it early. At some point they're going to open up, and someone with a 16-day incubation period will slip by and spread it. Or someone from a container ship.
The first US fatality was reported on Feb 29. There are reports that it started spreading in the US in late December. It took two months to notice it, 3.5 to panic. That said, people are looking for it now, so that helps.
It won't be irradiated without a vaccine or an absurd amount of testing. Too many people have either no symptoms or minor symptoms. Between that and a potentially long incubation period, it'll keep lurking around.
That's fine, as the measures can be tightened again if a new wave starts to rear its head. We can see this much earlier now with all the testing so the dampening measures will be much shorter and cheaper and more localized. Until the vaccine arrives.
I don't think anyone is claiming to totally eradicate it, or did I miss something? Because as long as people travel, it will still exist, e.g., we still have SARS and MERS and ZIKA, just very low numbers.
I thought the mindset was minimize it until we have a vaccine. I could be wrong.
No cases of SARS have been reported since 2004. It's probable that the SARS-CoV-1 virus was eradicated. That one might have been easier to control because it progressed much faster (and more commonly) to death than the novel coronavirus.
Lockdowns are/were intended to prevent jamming hospitals with COVID patients which would lead to non-COVID emergencies being put at risk.
The idea is to lockdown an area not to STOP, but to SLOW the trickle of new patients into hospitals at a rate they can be serviced: e.g., balancing the pipeline. In anticipation of the huge surges seen in the North East US, many hospitals built-out their capacity but didn't need it. Thankfully, and hopefully they will not.
As for "natural repercussions," the different phased-reopening plans that governors are drawing up all share the same thing: let's try opening a little, and if the cases shoot up again, lock down if hospitals are at risk of overflowing. We just don't have a national policy, it is patchworks of different state alliances.
It was the best idea at the time, and we all know the only other proposed solution was to NOT lock down and let those who are susceptible pay the price. Some people on the news vocally approved of that idea, most people did not according to surveys.