We were building the plane while we were flying it. No one had it completely right or completely wrong.
IMHO vaccines were the biggest failure. Our response was so unbelievably slow--we didn't order enough doses, our vaccine board didn't recommend them for kids for a *long* time after we had gotten through the high-risk population, and we are *still* only recommending it for the highest risk individuals. So, unlike my mom who has had six shots (eh, feels excessive, but still...) and no Covid, I have had three shots and two bouts with the illness.
I also thought that our restrictions on outdoor activities were too harsh for too long. We were ahead of some countries on encouraging people to get get out for a walk or a run or a bike ride, but not with *anyone* else. I think the thing that made the Bavarians say "enough's enough" was cancelling the (outdoor) Christmas markets in December 2021. I think that they lost the "hearts and minds" battle at that point.
Schools were hit/miss. We did a lot right, prioritizing onsite learning was good, and how we made sure that schools were safe was great, but the way that we did it (being told by the county which students would be onsite, hybrid, or remote, every Friday for the following week) led to a lack of consistency and security that hurt *everyone.*
On a related note, the German educational authorities failed in a big way to learn *anything* from the many great, innovative things that we did with remote learning during the pandemic. 18 inches of snow, followed by an ice storm? Airport is closed, trains aren't running? Doesn't matter--get to school today or else.
There is a school of thought that the autumn 2020 lockdown was too soft and too late. I think that this is probably valid, as we could likely have saved a lot of lives in that short period of time. But, if we could have then rolled out vaccines quickly in January, we'd have been in a great place. That...didn't happen.
I think that the best things that we did (at least from a school perspective) were testing and ventilation. Everyone tested onsite at least 3x per week (for a while it was every morning), and we were required to open the windows for 5 minutes every 15. I don't ever want to do that again, but it worked.