Nearly uniform testing levels among the states sufficient to indicate that we're getting a real sample of the population, and not the biased sick sample we're getting with PCR testing, would be a start. If you want to be angry about something, be angry that we can't get our act together to get this data collected.

It's going to be a lot easier to win arguments about lockdown when we're confident in our testing data. Right now, nobody is.

You start doing it when you can gather enough information, fast enough to prevent new spikes from happening. The number of "known cases" becomes very low, and then ideally one can react fast enough when new clusters start forming.

When someone comes up with a sane, sensible and actionable plan.

Waiting it out for a vaccine. Even/odd days. Provisioning of masks for everybody. Enough toilet paper to ensure basic sanitation. Enough COVID tests to effectively gauge progress or regress. Rationing. Put all unemployed Americans on the military payroll and make them take turns delivering supplies.

We could look at what any other country who has made even nominal progress with this epidemic have done, pick any single step at random and it would be one made in the right direction.

Instead we've all been told to stay home just long enough to lose our jobs, file some papers and (maybe) receive a paltry stipend, we don't even have the testing infrastructure to know how bad this really is (confirmed cases aren't increasing if the supply of tests isn't keeping up with demand!), and that isn't stopping our syphilitic warlock from telling everybody to take anti-parasitics, drink Lysol and get back out there before it affects his re-election campaign.

There is no leadership. There is no plan. There's a reason this isn't getting better, but letting nature take its course is not the solution.

So much this. Mine is a trite comment, but I can't put it any better than you have.

I've heard some mention of "two weeks of decline in the number of new cases." That sounds reasonable to me.