Do lockdowns even work?

Unless the Western countries were to take drastic lockdown measures like the Chinks did (literally welding doors shut), there seems to be no way for lockdowns to work—with the end result being a wrecked economy and still a continuation of COVID. Even if 99.999% of Americans were to follow all pandemic lockdown orders to a T, it really only takes a hand full of positive people to fuck it up.

Is it best to just open up everything and keep on with the masks orders until a vaccine pulls through? This looks like it’s just a viscous cycle of opening and closing things for nothing.