[reindeer76]

28 million years of life lost in 31 countries whose population appears to add up to over 1 billion people.

So what are we talking about here, maybe like 2 weeks each? Which is optimistic -- because personally I believe most of the restrictions have a very small effect. Roughly that many people were going to die anyway, whether we did Sweden's approach or Austria's approach or anywhere in between.

Well - good god, I'm really looking forward to those extra 2 weeks of my life. They will be amazing. It will definitely make up for spending my entire youth, and possibly my entire life, in a hellish surveillance state where you aren't allowed to go to school or see your family and you have to show your papers to enter a restaurant. SO WORTH IT, right?

[simonh]

Right, that’s the loss of life _with_ lockdowns, mass vaccinations, etc. we’ve successfully managed to limit the damage to much, much, much lower levels than it would have been otherwise. It’s been a huge success, compared to an unrestricted or minimally constrained propagation of the virus.

[adevx]

That's a huge assumption. Given how well Sweden has done with limited lockdowns [0] one could also jump to conclusions that lockdowns have prolonged and exacerbated a situation that would otherwise have fizzled out with herd immunity.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

[reindeer76]

Sweden.