[datad]

“ Getting rid of COVID became impossible the moment governments decided to wait with restrictions until there is enough cases.”

No, Chinese government stalled, suppressed doctors and scientists who were screaming out about the virus months, literally, before anybody outside the Chinese government was aware. That’s a matter of record and easily verified.

[lmilcin]

Chinese government did what Chinese government usually does. Then the rest of the world decided to wait for couple of months to react even with full knowledge of seriousness of the situation.

"Let's wait before putting any restrictions on the population until we have enough cases."

Restrictions were probably unavoidable, but most of deaths could have been avoided by quick reaction.