Best Strategy?

One of the things that we will never know is whether the actions we took in many states to flatten the curve were better than doing nothing.

Certainly it was better in saving lives, at least it would seem so.  Had we simply advised people to wear masks get tested and self isolate as needed, would we have had millions dead?

That estimate was based on doing nothing so any mitigation efforts would have had some impact.

It is most likely true that we aren't going to eliminate the virus and an effective vaccine will take some time, so since the vast majority of people who get the virus survive and most have mild to moderate symptoms, would more moderate responses have worked?

Sweden which is in many ways very different from the U.S. took the approach of advising citizens to be careful and never had a significant lockdown.  It has, at last reporting reached a level of 6.25 deaths a day per million people, the highest in Europe.

Still when you look at the statistics, Sweden doesn't look significantly worse than the other countries.

You see that Sweden had, so far 34 death per 100,000 residents while effectively continuing normal activities.  What is hard to determine is the effective date of the lockdowns versus the number infected.  It is very possible that Sweden's lack of protective measures will allow infections and deaths to continue while the countries that had those measures are going to see a significant reduction.

The only real use of this data is to consider what to do when the next virus comes.  It will come and we need to consider the best response to it.  We also need to have plenty of supplies and response plans for the various possibilities. 

This time we were a bit like a deer in the headlight, wondering about those bright lights as doom approached.