The idea is not just to keep the curve low initially and then abandon all measures, but to figure out how to keep the curve consistently low over time until a vaccine or highly effective treatment is discovered.

Basically, when you're in free fall and the parachute slows you down comfortably, don't take that as the cue to cut your chute.

Also you may have overlooked adequate testing availability and contact tracing.

And even if contact-tracing is lagging, an abundant supply of testing can at least help to ensure that symptomless or incubating-but-not-showing-symptoms-yet infections can be identified early to prevent wildfire-type spread.

My guess would be that with more tests and resources available, start with a stuttered type approach, open for 2-3 weeks, then lockdown for 2-3 weeks while we wait for new infections to manifest symptoms and for infected to quarantine until they're not infectious.

That could serve as a baseline for what to watch for during reopening, to gauge risk as to whether to repeat with some alteration in timing.

> Is there a 4th option I did not think of? Because I can't figure out how they are going to end this.

Some flavor of mandatory mask/glove/bunny suit wearing and social distancing (e.g. mandatory table-to-table distance at restaurants) would keep the curve flat while allowing a majority of day-to-day life to resume.

> Is there a 4th option I did not think of? Because I can't figure out how they are going to end this.

Pharmacological treatments, I'd say.

Lockdown until you can get back to containment (drive infection numbers so low that you have the resources to trace/test contacts and send possible infections into quarantine).

"Everyone becomes immune" will take longer than vaccine if you don't want to overload your hospitals, and bets on long-term immunity which we don't know yet.

This sounds like a false tricotomy (see what I did there?). Taiwan has effectively contained the outbreak with fewer than 500 cumulative cases for their very dense population of 23m. Unfortunately we can't go back and act swiftly in the beginning like they did, so we'll never approach that level of success, but we can take some lessons from what they continue to do.

I was there in January and February and had my temperature taken routinely to enter populous shopping areas, tourist-packed areas, transit, etc. Mask usage was mandatory in some cases, like buses. They ensured they had sufficient inventory of masks, and even published it so that you could look up which pharmacy to go to. There were lines down the block outside of them, but they also had a reliable ration available for anyone who would wait.

State-side, I haven't had my temperature checked once. Even when I reentered the US, there wasn't so much as a thermal camera to walk in front of (that I could see, anyway). This was the procedure upon entering both Taiwan and transiting through Japan all the way back in January when cases in Taiwan were in the single digits. I can't even find a single mask here.

People were sensible and conscientious there. People voluntarily cut back their social behaviors, but they haven't enacted a hard shut down. It seems to me that we just haven't implemented any common sense behaviors and expect Trump/the governor/Fauci/whoever to come up with some genius plan to solve the crisis for us.