[ithkuil]

> It's going to be on the order of the direct deaths at least.

Possibly. And many will interpret this as the cure being "worse of (or as bad as) the disease".

But what we should really be comparing this to is the number of deaths we'd have if we didn't do anything to reduce the spread.

Anybody has good simulation data that takes into account what we learned so far?

[rrmm]

On top of that, it wouldn't be like the hospitals would be business as usual if the lockdown didn't occur. Models mostly showed they would have had their hands full with covid cases (and therefore still not handling normal cases and elective stuff). Additionally many people going to hospitals for whatever reason would likely end up exposed to COVID.