Replace "Covid" with "cancer" or "heart disease"...

...We've been applying new therapies, as they've been approved, for decade after decade after decade. Gradually, though not in a straight line, we've improved therapeutic approaches to cancer and heart disease, but they are still significant killers.

I'd say that if trying to address a disease with one, then another, and then another and another and another approach is "whack-a-mole," then modern medicine has been whacking moles for a long, long time, and I don't see a better system unless God, or the supervising aliens, come down and give us the perfect answers.

Now, if by "whack-a-mole" you are strictly referring to the public health approaches that involve distancing and masking (and perhaps even a return to shutdowns), that's a harder one to pin down, because we generally haven't had to enact these measures in anyone's lifetime. I'm 66 and sure don't recall anything like this. But if the boat you're in keeps springing leaks, sometimes you just have to keep bailing.