ATC Watcher: I don’t necessarily disagree with your assessment that the figures may be under-reported.
With that said, the (questionable) Imperial study that the government seems to have heavily relied on in the UK (or at least been sufficiently spooked by to be spurred into a change in policy) has as its worst case doomsday scenario a death toll of 500,000 in the UK if no measures were taken. In absolute terms that is a big number, but it’s still an extremely small proportion of the UK population. Even that worst case projection cannot logically justify the damage currently being wrought on the economy.