I read an article that said that suppression of the virus is the only way through - getting the R0 factor below R1 everywhere.
(Elimination woud be preferrable, thereby skipping the ongoing process of suppressing cluster outbreaks, but elimination is very hard to attain and only smaller countries have been able to attain that, for now.)
Should we try to eradicate or suppress COVID-19 in Australia?
Although, it is said that the 1918 virus eventually died down to have the intensity of a normal flu. So, some flu deaths still happened, but the majority of the population managed to cope fairly well by riding out a typical flu.