It's already known that CoVID can be eliminated in individual countries. A number of countries got rid of it all the way back in early-to-mid 2020: China (inclu

It's already known that CoVID can be eliminated in individual countries. A number of countries got rid of it all the way back in early-to-mid 2020: China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, and several other places. The places that eliminated CoVID-19 in 2020 did far better than those that didn't, both in terms of preventing death (no cases means no CoVID deaths) and keeping society functioning more or less normally. Once CoVID is gone, you can reopen bars, restaurants, etc. without having to worry about the virus spreading. The main challenge after local elimination is preventing the virus from getting back in and reestablishing itself. The first line of defense is border quarantine. Behind that, you need ongoing surveillance (e.g., test everyone who shows up at a clinic with a fever or sore throat) to detect new outbreaks early. Once you detect an outbreak, you need to use tools like contact tracing (with mandatory quarantine and isolation), mass testing and, when absolutely necessary, local lockdowns to end it. The question is why more countries didn't follow this strategy. For any country able to pull it off, it was obviously worth it. China reopened in April 2020. Most people haven't experienced a lockdown since, life has been mostly normal, and there hasn't been any large outbreak since (the largest one was about 2,000 people in total). The main cost is that international travel is difficult, because you have to quarantine for 3 weeks when you return, but that doesn't affect most people.