The governments tried to pretend that locking down for only a few weeks, then months, would make sense, but those of us in the loop already knew it would be necessary to lockdown for a lot longer to completely eliminate the spread of the virus. But the governments won't say that, because then people wouldn't accept the lockdown, and because they themselves wanted to open up the economy as soon as possible. It will probably take longer than expected to get a vaccine, too, and might take a LOT longer.