The US isn't the only country in the world. Countries with varying levels of mask usage and lockdown have all fared (mostly) better than the US. Much like we don't know about the long-term effects of Covid, we don't know overly much about what public policy is most effective because the data gives mixed indicators. "What we've done" varies highly from state to state.
100% it's a guessing game. An educated guessing game and hindsight is 2020 but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the United States decision making (relative to most major countries) has not been good for preventing the spread of the disease OR the economy.
If the spread of the disease was like it is now but we were on track to have the strongest economy in the world then sure you can make a legitimate argument. But I think we're going to bleed the most medically and financially because of the path we're on. And it's like we've made so many wrong decisions that it's hard to even say what's going to right the ship at this point. It's almost like we're in a position where we can't stop the bleeding we can just slow it down and hope the loss of lives/economy isn't too great
And in hindsight it's easy to say, but I think if we majorly locked excrement down from the get-go that not only would the loss of lives be severely reduced hut so would the economic impact
