Europe right now shows the full spectrum of possible solutions. It is not as if draconian lockdowns are the only alternative. Look at Germany, for example. They've been using testing quite effectively and are also looking at primarily isolating vulnerable people.
It will take some time before we know more about how successful these strategies are. Different countries are at different phases in the infection spread which makes comparisons unfair.
If anything, the politically easy decision would be the lockdowns which shows voters strong leaders capable of "doing something" (even if the value of this "something" is at best unclear).
Germany doesn't test well at all.
My wife's school in Berlin has been closed since Thursday because of a positive parent who partied in a club the same night as over 16 now infected persons.
Teachers are still waiting for test results and are supposed yo come back to work on Monday.
I can't really explain why there are so few casualties yet in Germany, but I think it's because many young and healthy people got infected (that's the case in Berlin, for instance), so hospitals aren't yet saturated.
I hope it stays that way, but I think we can expect much more deaths in the next days.
Europe is a chaotic mess. Germany is preventing exports of urgently needed masks and other medical supplies to Switzerland and Austria, Austria announced that no curfews were coming yesterday and today Tirol is under curfew and harsh curfew-like restrictions will be in place from Monday in all of Austria. I'm not really sure what the strategy is, the WHO recommendations after their China mission have been known for 3 weeks and there is no recommended middle ground.
Germany is doing pretty well at just 9 deaths on 4.5k cases. The WHO is not the only or the best source of recommendations, nor is this over in China. I'd be very surprised if they don't see another outbreak there now that this is a pandemic it will spread to Africa for example, which has a huge no of Chinese working there who will bring it back.
I'm not sure german successses are anything to do with action on the part of the government. I've been consistently surprised by the abrupt reversals in policy - with border controls or school closures going from 'out of the question' to 'tomorrow' with very little time elapsed.
I think much of Europe is a little bit like this. Germany will probably be relatively well off because German culture is fairly anti-social, Germans are typically very healthy, and the healthcare system is somewhat robust.
However, I haven't seen any sign whatsoever of a consistent or coherent response to the coronavirus. I expect whatever response eventually percolates out will be fairly rational, since german civil servants are well-paid and competent, but so far, it's been all over the place.
Growth in Germany is exponential. It doesn't matter how many people they manage to test if they are still going to wait and see before taking measures to reduce the infection rate.
It will take some time before we know more about how successful these strategies are. Different countries are at different phases in the infection spread which makes comparisons unfair.
If anything, the politically easy decision would be the lockdowns which shows voters strong leaders capable of "doing something" (even if the value of this "something" is at best unclear).