I don't think it's that dire. All we really need to do is get R0 below 1.0.
In Wuhan, they got it down to 0.3 with the huge lockdown and also aggressive testing and out-of-home quarantine. We will need a period of that to get the case count down to near zero.
Then it's possible to let up, but just a bit. People will need to wear masks and wash their hands a lot, but if R0 is say, 0.8, each new case leads to just a few more cases and then it dies out instead of exponentially growing. That's the flip side of an exponential function.
In Wuhan, they got it down to 0.3 with the huge lockdown and also aggressive testing and out-of-home quarantine. We will need a period of that to get the case count down to near zero.
Then it's possible to let up, but just a bit. People will need to wear masks and wash their hands a lot, but if R0 is say, 0.8, each new case leads to just a few more cases and then it dies out instead of exponentially growing. That's the flip side of an exponential function.