It would have been possible in the USA, but we've seen a failure in leadership to prevent the spread of the virus.

If we had taken decisive action in January or February, we would have had enough resources for contact tracing, and really limit the spread. Instead we'll see at least 200K deaths from this before it is over.

Looking at the new case counts for the USA vs. the EU makes me sad and angry.

California has plenty of contact tracers and testing. Rt is still above 1.

Because we have a whole bucketload of idiots who can't be bothered to wear a damn mask and stay the hell home.

When 2 Mother's Day gatherings account for 50% of the cases in Santa Cruz county, what can you do short of saying "You're a moron."

It probably also doesn't help that a lot of Arizonans travel to California at this time of year to escape the heat.

To me (as a layman) it seems like if you take drastic measures early and get procedures and infrastructure for testing and contact tracing and isolate the sick and those who have been in contact with the sick it’s possible to get it under control so that you can start opening up schools and loosening social distancing rules/guidelines.

Look for example at Norway and Sweden. Norway took drastic measures early and were able to stop the spread to such a degree that schools opened up again after Easter and everything is almost back to normal now. Sweden did not take very drastic measures early and have had massive spread and 20 times more fatalities than Norway and now they have in many regards stricter social distancing rules than than Norway.

After a certain point it seems like you have to either shut down society for a long period of time (Italy) or just let it run its course through society somewhat controlled.

Comparing countries like this does not make sense. The spread of the virus is more a reflection of how people live, what they do day to day, rather than what measures they took protect themselves.

Austria and Italy, share a border, have ski lodges in the same Alps. Austria got off easy even though they had a one of the first outbreaks, Italy got hammered for two months. Yet Italy locked down harder during all this time.

I don't know in what way is Norway different from Sweden, Norway looks and feels a lot more rural and sparse. Sweden more cosmopolitan.

Sure there's lots of factors. My point is that if you can stop or limit gatherings and contact points early the spread will decrease dramatically. It will still spread within smaller communities like families, but as long as you can limit spread outside of smaller communities the virus will have no where to go. So it seems more like a timing issue than how people live. Oslo is similar to Stockholm, just smaller, but have dramatically less cases (Oslo was hit hardest in Norway).

You could also compare Sweden to Denmark which is more similar than Norway. Denmark took drastic measures quite early and were able to get it under control.

Further to that I agree it's too early to say what is the best strategy long term. All epidemiologists in Scandinavia basically agreed with the Swedish approach in the beginning of the outbreak, but politicians in Norway and Denmark thought otherwise. I guess epidemiologists didn't think it was an option to basically lock down a modern country for several months and maintain social distancing rules for months on end. If this works until the end I assume the books on the subject will be rewritten ...

At this point the pandemic is so widespread that testing and contact tracing would be unlikely to achieve containment. We would have to first impose a very strict lockdown for several weeks, which would be politically difficult.

You're never going to achieve containment with just contact tracing, testing, and politely requesting that people stay at home. People won't comply. Containment requires mandating compliance:

* Forcibly testing people regularly

* Forcibly quarantining people who test positive

* Mandating contact tracing regardless of personal preference

* Imposing travel restrictions on hot spots with actual blockades

* Restricting any gatherings that aren't essential, with "essential" actually meaning essential (grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, etc) rather than politically necessary.

* Mandating correct wearing of masks

* Closing borders or requiring quarantine upon entry

In effect, we need to do what China did. We absolutely lack the political will to do that in the US for a variety of reasons, and so we will not be able to approach containment until we get a vaccine.

uhhh, it is not political will that we lack

most people do not want that at all

I most certainly not want to be forcibly tested or mandated to "correctly" wear the mask and you can fuck off you do

Well, unfortunately your opinion doesn't change the fact that those are the requirements for containment outside of vaccine development. Any other strategy will likely ultimately fail. Sorry if that makes you unhappy; sadly the virus doesn't really care about our opinions.