Maybe your goal was to "just" flatten the curve which, even if you don't overwhelm hospitals, still leaves a lot of people dead or with permanent damage. Others think the best strategy is (and some other countries' stated goal was) to push cases down to a number where containment strategies (tracing contacts and wiping out infection chains) work again. Some countries got too lax after the lockdown and let cases rise above tracing capabilities again, in other countries that still works.