[PeterisP]

The observation from comparing different countries after the fact seems to be that the economy suffers from the epidemic itself (voluntary change of habits plus hospitalizations) as much it does from lockdowns, so the argument is that if you avoided lockdowns then you got both the increased deaths from covid and also the deaths because people lost jobs and are depressed.

The economic issues and the associated death increase was avoided only in countries which successfully managed to limit the spread of disease, which generally involved aggressive early lockdowns.