Consider the US experience
https://elliottmiddleton.substack.co...lockdowns-kill
So looking at excess deaths in 2020, perhaps 58% were due to Covid and 42% were due to our various mitigations - lockdowns, deferred medical care, and probably also the vax.
Here’s the thing though
Covid deaths were overwhelmingly in the elderly. The average age of death from Covid was slightly above life expectancy.
Non-Covid deaths were overwhelmingly much younger.
Now some people argue that every life is equal. And it is in some respects. But not so when there is an opportunity cost - when spending $ and resources trying to save some people means others will die.
QALY (quality of life years) is the most accepted way to add sone objectivity to a fraught area.
QALY calculations mean that with limited resources or when a policy will benefit sone and harm others, decisions should favor those with the most time to live - not those with the least.
So although US likely prevented more deaths overall through these measures, total years of life lost were higher.
something to contemplate. And that does not even take into account the harms to the young due to reduced education, reduced social interaction, and losing those all important rites of passage.
Australia was in a different situation. We could ;and did) close our borders until we had a vaccine. It was a hell of a gamble which paid off. But contemplate the awful political conundrum had there been no vax (remember efforts failed with SARS in 2003, and there was no guarantee we would succeed this time).
Having closed the border however, internal mitigations probably did more harm overall than good.