The comparison is fraught with problems due to the lack of immunity for COVID.
The "with shutdowns, masks and closed schools" line also assumes the effectiveness of all those measures, and ignores the glaring problem that they simply kick the can down the road -- there is no appetite for shutdowns and closed schools until the end of 2021, but a vaccine could easily take that long (if not longer) to be generally available -- assuming any of the current vaccine candidates work well. So what, exactly, is the plan?
The "with shutdowns, masks and closed schools" line also assumes the effectiveness of all those measures, and ignores the glaring problem that they simply kick the can down the road -- there is no appetite for shutdowns and closed schools until the end of 2021, but a vaccine could easily take that long (if not longer) to be generally available -- assuming any of the current vaccine candidates work well. So what, exactly, is the plan?