There are some scientists who take an extremely single-sided viewpoint on this and preach that lockdown should last for another couple of years and some industries and venues should be permanently shut down even after mass vaccination, just in case. It kind of reminds me of the perverted fantasies of building a "locked-in economy" that circulated in the early days of the pandemic, during the first round of lockdowns. That involved bright suggestions like allowing people to work in cycles of 4 days, followed by 10 days of home detention, correction, quarantine. Needless to say, this is practically impossible for many reasons.
For now, one year into this mess, close to 200 million jobs have been destroyed globally. Many, many others are hanging by a thread and will disappear the moment government support is pulled - and government support cannot last indefinitely. More than two decades of progress in fighting global poverty have been reversed - and poverty happens to bring reduced life expectancy. That's not to mention all the countless deferred scheduled treatments, mental health issues affecting a double-digit percentage of the population, exploding domestic violence and all the other great things brought up by the "new normal".
We're constantly being told that no price is too high when it comes to keeping the numbers low. But when does collateral damage outweigh the direct damage from infection? Nobody seems to have an answer for that - and it should be pivotal to any policies.