They didn't have to maintain the draconian initial lockdown the whole year though. A few months in they were opening things back up and thoroughly testing everyone that came into the country to keep it from being reintroduced while maintaining the monitoring to catch new cases. To all outward appearances it worked. The failure in the US wasn't inevitable, the US didn't even implement the basic versions of fever monitoring and test and trace, this whole time there have been two places that have temperature checked me; the courthouse and an store for a shared glass blowing studio. We have a lot of the same tools, medical quarantines, food distribution so people don't have to leave their houses, etc, there's just a massive difference in the attitude towards collective action in the US.