New Zealand was exceptionally successful, and other areas which tried that strategy weren't so lucky. Some parts of Australia were shut down for something like 9 of the past 18 months. (Sydney is under lockdown orders today!) And I think it's hard to find fault with the strength of lockdowns in France, Spain, or Italy - their lockdowns just didn't fully eliminate transition, so we put them in the "weak lockdown" bucket, even though as a matter of government policy they were doing the same thing.