We would be screwed, IMHO, based on the current mitigation strategies around curve flattening that are not being communicated realistically to the public. The crop of shutdowns over the weekend were billed as 2-3 weeks.. Err, what? How are we even going to know what effect that's having without massive blanket testing? Then, nobody seems to believe anything less than 8 weeks is enough; and that's full-blown lock-down not fractions of half measures.
But as you say, the just spreads it out. So what happens in 8 weeks when we still can't let up the restrictions because if we did that the number of cases would just explode again among the uninfected population? If we aren't turning the corner by June and getting the 40% of adults who can't afford $400 in an emergency back to work..
I'm sympathetic to the UKs strategy and hope the best for them.