I am wondering this because natural Covid immunity is better overall at keeping you from getting Covid again, including the Delta variant.
Considering that the original strain was basically harmless per the data to anyone under 40, and under 50 per the data if you weren't overweight or had co-morbidities you were probably ok as well, and that being the majority of the working population, should we not have let all these people continue to work, quarantine the elderly who were susceptible to the virus, and built up immunity that way, rather than waiting on a vaccine?
Was the shutdown responsible for allowing the disease to hang around for so long? We did slow the spread, but considering that (per the WHO) there was a possibility of ten times as many cases as what was reported because of asymptomatic persons, is it not possible we could have survived a surge of the Alpha form and never given the disease a chance to mutate into the Delta variant?
I have not researched this, and I'm merely asking for opinions in a hindsight is 20/20 type of a question. Trying to start less of a left vs right argument and more of a theoretical what could have been better type of argument.