China has it under control (yes, seriously, it's not just CCP propaganda) and they have over a billion people. So do many other countries like Vietnam.
China (and Vietnam and SK) did this successfully with extremely strict lockdown rules. I'm not sure those would have been accepted in the West.
Arguably the West handled in the worst of both outcomes - arbitrary and incomplete lockdowns - that caused a huge financial toll and a huge human toll.
Unfortunately that only works when there's no guarantee of freedoms by the government. No free country was able to do a lockdown that strictly and effectively.
We do pay a price for those freedoms sometimes in times of crises - but there's no doubt which system we'd rather live under.
Arguably the West handled in the worst of both outcomes - arbitrary and incomplete lockdowns - that caused a huge financial toll and a huge human toll.