COVID zero

Initially we were concerned about flattening the curve, but then we faced a choice – to open up the country and live with Covid or to keep pursuing the goal of zero cases by stepping up our tracking and tracing.  We watched countries that did opt for the abandonment of restrictions experience a surge in cases and a rise in deaths.  It is really only now that we have the Delta strain that is proving too fast for the tracers that we are really anguishing over COVID zero (or zero COVID).  Is it worth the pain of widespread and long-lasting lockdowns?  The answer seems to be that stopping Delta seems to be impossible anyway but we should hang on to the COVID-zero strategy until the majority of the populace is vaccinated.