I'm genuinely interested in trying to understand the anti-lockdown rationale, because I simply can't see how the arguments stack up.
There seem to be a few possible rationales.
1. There's a trade-off between health and the economy. We have to choose between saving lives and saving the economy. (A sub-set of this is that there's a trade-off in different types of deaths, so lockdown may save Covid deaths, but this will be outweighed by causing even more non-Covid deaths).
2. Lockdowns simply do not work.
3. Lockdowns are an unreasonable curtailment of civil liberties, and this is true regardless of the number of extra deaths from Covid.
1. Trade-off between health and economy. Data simply doesn't seem to back this option up at all, because countries that have effectively and firmly tackled Covid have suffered less economic damage. China prioritised cracking-down on Covid, and its economy is in a very good place. On the other hand, UK took longer than most nations to enter lockdown, and has one of the highest covid deaths per million and one of the biggest hits to its economy.
The attached link shows comparisons between how different countries have handled the pandemic, and the outcomes. (Second graph in the link shows the GDP v Deaths trade-off). I don't know how trusted the source is, but Eurostat figures are used.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economyIf squashing the virus also helps the economy, then the "trade-off" argument can't be maintained.
(There's an associated argument that cracking down on Covid deaths causes more cancer deaths, suicides and other forms of deaths. This argument states that hospitals should be more focused on treating non-Covid diseases. The big problem here is that if there's a Covid epidemic, the hospitals can't treat non-Covid diseases, because they'll be full of Covid patients. Even if there is capacity, as in the first wave, cancer patients will be deterred from visiting hospitals because of the risk of catching Covid. The only way around this is to prevent Covid patients from entering hospitals, but then they will die at home, and the death rate will be 4/5 times if they are denied medical care)
2. Lockdowns simply do not work.We know the virus is spread between humans, mainly through breathing, but also can be picked up from contaiminated surfaces.
For this, I'm defining "lockdowns" as any type of restriction of normal economic activity".
We have a lot of evidence about lockdowns. China used extremely strong lockdowns in Wuhan. That worked.
UK delayed lockdown compared to other countries. We had far more infections and subsequent deaths than other similar countries. The first lockdown co-incided with an eventual large drop in infections. We moved to "mild lockdowns" where government encouraged mask-wearing, opened pubs, restaurant, schools and other retail. Then there was a sharp increase in new infections. Areas like Liverpool which moved sooner to stronger restrictions have seen a decrease in new infections, while over the same period, regions with lighter restrictions than Liverpool have seen cases continue to grow.
So scientifically, lockdowns should work because they restrict opportunities for the virus to spread, and empirically, the evidence shows they do work.I can't see any evidence for saying that lockdowns don't work.
3. Lockdowns are an unreasonable curtailment of civil liberties, and this is true regardless of the number of extra deaths from Covid.There's an inherent logic to this argument, as it depends on the relative value people put on life and risk/reward profiles. Because my subjective approach prioritises saving tens of thousands of lives above temporary restrictions on freedom, so although I appreciate other people's trade-offs are equally valid but different, I'm not sure what trade-off would be acceptable for people who hold the "civil liberties above all" view. If for example, we went back to "completely normal" as in all retail open, football and racing open to the public, face-masks and distancing purely optional, it's clear that in the next 2-3 months there would be somewhere in the region of 40,000-70,000 avoidable Covid deaths. (I'm using "avoidable" in the sense of comparing it against keeping restrictions for 2-3 months).
All being well, there a vaccine should be available for the most vulnerable groups by end-February (so 3 more months) which means that the NHS wouldn't necessarily get completely overwhelmed. There's an end in sight, so there is a reasonable discussion to be had about how many Covid deaths we as a nation are prepared to accept in exchange for fewer restrictions on our daily life. (Once the vaccine is widely available, the trade-off is far better). Please note I'm not saying anything derogatory about people who think that additional deaths are a small price to pay for our freedoms, as we already have lots of situations where we as a nation choose to accept deaths of other citizens in return for other benefits (e.g. car use).
Are there any other lockdown rationales that I've missed?