[cap1434]

I would recommend you subscribe to your own advice and approach the disastrous side effects of these lockdowns with empathy instead of just chalking it up to an "inconvenience". There are people dying due to these policies and lockdowns and others will suffer long term negative effects. It's not just an inconvenience. People with preexisting conditions (depression, suicidal thoughts, addiction, violent/murderous) make up a significant percentage of the population. These policies will be a major factors in some percentage of them dying. They will also be a major factor in increasing the number of people with these conditions (more people will become depressed, suicidal, form addictions). Others will face years of mental and physical suffering due to economic effects.

It's essentially the same argument you are trying to make in favor of the lockdowns. Without the lockdowns, families will have to bury their loved ones and grow up without grandma/grandpa around. Other people will have long term health effects from catching this virus. With the lockdowns, some people will have to bury their (usually much younger) loved ones and grow up without brother/sister/son/daughter/friend around. Others will have long term mental health effects.

My cousin overdosed in May 2020. He had battled with addictions for a while before lockdowns but nothing to the point that we thought it would kill him. He went off the rails being forced to isolation and is now dead. His family had to bury him with no one else allowed to be present. In the same way that it's easy to overlook the impact of the virus if it has not severely impacted your family, its easy to overlook the lockdown effects if you and your family have not been severely impacted.

Stopping to think about the value of a life in a real sense should horrify you by all of the deaths and suffering caused by the virus but it should also horrify you to think of the value of the lives taken/affected by these sudden policy implementations. It does not make you a monster to consider both sides.

As for the clear path in terms of policies, both sides of the coin should be considered to the degree of certainty we know the risks to be. Unfortunately, this usually does require you put abstract/monetary/years-of-life-lost statistics in play.