If we're just going to ignore Covid and return to normal life what do you propose we do with everyone who is critically ill with the effects of Covid
This is a misrepresentation I hear quite a lot, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone suggest Covid should be “ignored” and yet that’s how those calling for more moderate measures are repeatedly depicted.
Strictly speaking it's not primarily to protect people who might get Covid and suffer from it, it's to protect the health service from being overwhelmed.
I hope you’re right. It won’t take that much vaccination before overloading the health service is no longer a credible threat. Unfortunately I fully expect the goalposts to be moved again, as they have been repeatedly, and either for low priority procedures to resume (shifting the threshold of “overload” downwards) or deaths in younger people and long Covid to be the new talking point. It would not be right to shut down society so that cataract surgery can go ahead or a small number of deaths can be avoided in my opinion.
Sweden's approach has been seen as a failure, it wasn't worth the amount of death for an only somewhat better economy.
I have relocated to Mexico at present which has been quite an insight in terms of different ways of handling Covid.
Their case statistics are worthless because you have to pay to get a Covid test. But their excess deaths are comparable, though they have a younger population.
In the early part of the pandemic I understand from family members that they followed closely with lockdowns but those have not been repeated.
We now have mask wearing (more so than in the U.K., despite not being mandated), social distancing, hand sanitiser everywhere, and in the region I’m in an outright ban on alcohol sale anywhere for quite a long time.
But no dining, shop or movement restrictions.
There is a high rate of Covid deaths but not the fear inducing rises and falls as in Europe. In other words an equilibrium has been reached.
People have acclimatised and are acting normally with places relatively busy. So that doesn’t tie in with the “people don’t want to get sick so they’ll stay indoors” assertion. An assertion that is plainly disprovable by the way, since if it were true, those who want less social activity wouldn’t have to try and mandate it through authoritarian measures.
I know countries are not directly comparable and you may in any event dispute that Mexico is taking the right path considering the amount of death. But at least its leaders can know that any loss of livelihood was caused by the virus itself, not their responses in terms of lockdowns. And I would argue that letting people decide for themselves how much they wish to restrict their social activity is more democratic then imposing it on everyone top-down.
However I would note that when you say of Sweden:
it wasn't worth the amount of death for an only somewhat better economy
...how do you factor the massive amount of debt the U.K. has accrued in the outcome of having (as you say) an only somewhat worse economy? It’s disingenuous to compare economies without factoring that in.