>Luckily, this is not something being pursued anymore and they moved away from it in time but you can certainly understand the attraction when you consider the consequences of the almost total shutdown required to suppress.

Imperial suggested a very interesting approach, turning the measures on and off as the cases rose above and fell below a couple thresholds. You can't hit R0=1.0 exactly, but you can swap between 3.0 and 0.3 as conditions change. This would allow businesses to have a chance of survival.