Italy had to do a quite hard lockdown in the Spring and then it had very low number of cases and deaths in the Summer. In the US, New York had also to respond

Italy had to do a quite hard lockdown in the Spring and then it had very low number of cases and deaths in the Summer. In the US, New York had also to respond hard to the first wave. Italy and US compared in deaths per million due to Covid-19: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-01-27..latest&country=ITA~USA&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=total_cases&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... China, having the hardest and the most restrictive lockdowns, managed something even better than both: binging the numbers to effectively zero, very early. They also managed to maintain the minimum of new cases by mass testing actions when there was a suspicion of the outbreak: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54504785 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54504785 "Covid-19: China's Qingdao to test nine million in five days" And they have still kept wearing the masks this year, whenever they aren't alone, if I understand it correctly. We also know that such kind of mass testing can be done in Europe too, if mandated, as in Slovakia: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slovakia-offers-proof-that-testing-millions-for-coronavirus-can-work-lqm7c9xj5 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slovakia-offers-proof-tha... So, no, it wasn't about the vaccines up to now. The measures simply work, proved in Europe, and even in the US, when they are consistently introduced. As simple as that.