So we isolate them, why should the rest of the planet pay the price?
Let's get real people, this is a dry run for a more virulent pandemic that WILL happen sometime down the line - we've been overdue for decades and with international travel being what it is and humanity spreading as we are, and worldwide pollution being what it is - it's a ******* certainty.
Yes you could have "locked down" or otherwise better managed even a gigantic economy like the USA, because the USA is still just a bunch of SMALLER economies, just like everyplace else.
As I said covid lasts only DAYS without a host and is currently EASILY killed on surfaces etc - the absolute ideal scenarios would have been to lock everything down for a month, and I mean everything, enforced with martial law and internment camps - yes I'm being wholly serious - if covid had been ebola, that's exactly what would have happened and I defy you to say different; once you accept that drastic situations require drastic action, it's a simple direct correlation.
If time could be turned back and humanity offered the above scenario for a month or two worldwide, compared to the now perpetual threat of covid and the economic cost (so far) that is going to generations to balance - what do you think the answer would be?
Humanity COULD have been entirely covid free by now - instead we've now folded this new virus into the yearly death count alongside the flu, and we have absolutely NO WAY of knowing how it will evolve and mutate.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - history will judge us all - we COULD have got a handle on this, but we instead allowed the bleeding hearts "show me the money / it's against my constitional rights / I have the right to my freedom / blah / blah / blah" people to condemn us all.