has any government ever controlled a viral spread?
Austria has 9M people with a density of 100/km.
Arizona has ~8M people with a density of 22/km.
Austria put in heavy restrictions in mid-March. Their high point in new cases (to date) was in late March. They haven't had a week with more than 1000 new cases since April. I believe they've reopened their borders with everyone except Italy.
Arizona is run by morons. They had similar numbers in the early part of April. Then they decided to start reopening in May and didn't put mask requirements in place until mid-June. It was over 1000 new cases *per day* for the entire month of July.
This is, quite plainly, government action and inaction killing people. Sound government policy has tamped the spread of Covid-19 and would have here if we had a President and certain state governments that weren't run by fucking morons.