[ben_w]

You’re comparing mismatched quantities. You should be comparing how many would have died and how much despair would be caused in the absence of the lockdown.

Consider this hypothetical: a pandemic solution which completely eliminates the disease while causing exactly 1 premature death. The death and despair from the solution far surpasses that of the disease itself, with infinity percent more death! This is clearly not a useful metric.

In the case of COVID, everywhere had some kind of pandemic response, but the least effective so far is Peru with 5982.3 deaths per million population, vs Australia’s 36 per million. Multiply by population, and the difference between the Peruvian and Australian fatality rate indicates Australia saved 152 thousand people. That’s the number of Australian residents you need to suspect have fatally missed a cancer screening.

Caveat: it ain’t over ‘till it’s over, and the Iron Pyrite medal for highest death toll can always change hands.

Edit: decimal point off by one