I agree that it was never a few months problem - but I think we had a window to stamp it out and low vaccination production and adoption rates have killed that window dead. I don't believe it's impossible that we beat this - but I would not be surprised if mutation rates simply outrun vaccination adaptation.
What do you base that on? That seems highly unlikely to me. Even as the virus tapers down in one country, it or a variant surges back in five others and then it spreads to others. I haven't seen any chance of stamping that out.
I mainly have a view into how Canada responded to the virus - and we did things okay-ish but weren't at emergency levels. Canada provided a lot of pre-orders for doses to try and spur private research into the vaccine (provide a monetary incentive) but it really lagged on any serious investment into nationalized production facilities with the main assumed acquisition method being purchasing them abroad. In March 2020 we all knew that there would eventually be a strong need to produce a vaccine (or like... we'd all die - it was one of those two options) and Canada is a relatively economically advanced nation with the capability (and public will - unlike the US) to build large non-private vaccination production facilities. This likely would drive long term employment as well as helping to fight against the pandemic.
The world could have seen this pandemic and gone all war-industry on it - convert factories and gear up production as if the nazis were days away from invading our shores - we simply didn't.
I agree that it was never a few months problem - but I think we had a window to stamp it out and low vaccination production and adoption rates have killed that window dead. I don't believe it's impossible that we beat this - but I would not be surprised if mutation rates simply outrun vaccination adaptation.