IMHO, the least-worst choice for governments everywhere has been to partially freeze their economies into lock-down, and borrow and spend however much is necess

IMHO, the least-worst choice for governments everywhere has been to partially freeze their economies into lock-down, and borrow and spend however much is necessary, for as long as necessary, to keep human and capital infrastructure in decent shape until the pandemic is history. The alternatives would have been horrific. But I suspect we'll have to reign debts at some point, either via high taxes (relatively benign, but unpleasant), high inflation rates (more unpleasant and destructive), financial/economic crises (extremely unpleasant and destructive), or some other mechanism.