I completely understand what you're saying wango.
But at the end of the day, it's a flu. And personal precautions are literally all we can do.
You could lock down the entire country for years, but eventually it's going to end the same way every other plague or flu has ended in all of human history.
It makes it's way through the population.
Government stopping the spread of a plague is a naive and ridiculous fantasy. No government has ever been able to stop a plague or any other force of nature ever in recorded history. Eventually, it'll run it's course. You can't legislate a plague out of existence. Just ain't going to happen. Plain and simple.
People's immune systems are not as strong as they used to be either. That's arguably a major culprit of the death rate. My whole family had covid. But we live in the woods and eat homegrown vegetables and lots of home raised meat and eggs. I think that's why we fared better than some. Stronger mmune systems through long term exposure to allergens and elements.
My point is, it comes down to personal precautions. And that's it. That's all anybody can do.
Fear mongering and Hysteria is exactly the opposite of what smart leadership should do. In practicality, there's really not alot they can actually do, except to relay the best information they can, encourage precautions and try to keep hysterics to a minimum. And work as hard as possible on a vaccine. That's really all that's going to help. Smart, and we'll intentioned leadership wouldn't stoke panic and lunacy. They'd try to keep the calm and proceed with the best course of action they could. If you want to call that "downplaying" then that's your choice. But I don't see it like that. What else was he supposed to do?
Making information available and recommend precautions are all smart leadership should do. As we see now, places and states that allowed government to run rampantly out of control fared little better, if at all to places that didn't.
It'll end the same way it always does. Hysterics and irrationality aren't going to help anything. Nor will government intervention.
As far as vaccination? We live in a free country (for now) and some people don't trust vaccines. They're free to make thier choices and voice their opinions just like everyone else. We don't have to agree. But we have to respect their choice.