I'd say that's a bit of a false dilemma. Countries like South Korea and Taiwan have dealt with this problem far better than other countries despite having very few lockdowns [1,2]. Instead they have made use of government funded distribution of free masks and testing and now have a low or declining number of active cases [3,4,5].
[1] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/30...
[2] https://chinapost.nownews.com/20200317-1094238
[3] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3869320
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_T...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...