Pigeon English, that’s why I put quotes around “lockdown” when referring to the UK. China had lockdowns; the UK has a stay-at-home order.
But stringent measures could be enforced humanely. The main things are that government should provide quarantine facilities, and give monetary support directly to the people rather than routed through businesses. Empower the people and they’ll protect their health for themselves, thus protecting everyone else.
It would be a lot cheaper too, to get it right once and get it over with, than this eternal procrastination and half measures. Look at these graphs for China. By mid March they’d crushed covid, and since then it’s been barely an issue.