Consensus from almost all countries is that you need to quarantine and shut down the economy in order to beat this. Those that believed that they could get around this with herd immunity are either paying a huge price (UK) or about to (Sweden).
And those politicians that took hard measures actually have been rewarded (Australia) and those that didn't punished (UK, US).
We'll find out in a few weeks whether the herd immunity approach is effective by looking at what happens in the poorest countries. Some of them have minimal ability to lock down the economy or quarantine people due to lack of resources, dysfunctional healthcare systems, limited food reserves, and weak governments. So the virus is going to run its course regardless of what anyone wants. It's a tragic situation but there doesn't appear to be any alternative.
Iran isn't particularly poor. Hardly anyone starves to death there. The real test will come when the virus hits places like refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Taiwan effectively stopped the virus at the border. They have only 380 cases and 5 deaths recorded total from the coronavirus.
It’s too late now for countries that have allowed the coronavirus to run wild for months and spread throughout their society to emulate that.
Vietnam is another success story as well I think - 255 cases, 0 deaths.
This is definitely the ideal model to follow which is to prevent the disease from rooting itself within your borders, allowing the economy and society to continue as normal.
Once you have wide-spread community transmission as Western countries do, emulating this approach becomes difficult... I believe the lockdowns are an attempt to effectively reset the state back to a lower number of active cases so that a South Korea style containment of the disease could be attempted.
