In France it's the same, a lot of opportunities were missed.We missed the chance early on while we were pushing herd immunity as a strategy, by the time we were forced to change tack it was already established.
Given the virus doesn't survive on it's own we could try for elimination but it would mean a genuine very strict lockdown plus more testing and tracing than we can do. We'd also need to get serious at ports and airports.
It's not impossible, but I think it is beyond us realistically speaking.
Masks, tests, resuscitation beds. All this in insufficient numbers.