Instead of THE GUBBMINT being evil by LOCKING EVERYTHING DOWN in some scary QUARANTINE ZONE or the like, imagine a “got to build up zombie bite immunity” response, or one with pseudoscientific treatments, or pretty much anything so 
can feel like things are back to normal while zombies are just a thing that continues happening.
Add your own ideas if you like. 
but we haven’t learned any economic or sociopolitical lessons from covid
I think OPs point is that most zombie fiction seems to depict the governmental response as trying and failing to contain it instead of doing nothing