What I recall from looking into this is that under half of the states had stay at home orders with the force of law. My own perspective was similar to yours - governor issued a "stay at home order" that when you read the details it was really just a strongly worded suggestion. Of course my state was still often listed in national summaries as if the order was mandatory.

But there does seem to be states where such orders were legally mandatory. Were they enforced? Would they survive court scrutiny if someone was arrested for say walking down the sidewalk in open air? Did they have massive escape hatches (eg caring for family members) ? No idea.

In Indiana, there were groceries that had early morning for healthcare workers and elderly only. That helped limit spread as well.

Again, we had no real lockdowns. School was remote, which had its own really bad effects on early socialization.

I'm not at all sure what we should have did differently. Technically a hard lockdown for 6 weeks could mostly eradicate it everywhere. But a lot of people can't handle that.

What I do now know is our society and public kinda sucks, people will show up and do stuff sick, spread sickness, and not really care much. And our government has been getting steadily worse and worse as long as Ive lived. And my generation and younger ones are either in for a terrible time, or already IN a terrible time.