I think responding to that idea with "that idea sounds Russian" does further degrade discussion, as it goes from someone considering cost of life to raising conspiracies that Russia/Asia are trying to leverage this situation to raise the death toll in Western society, which can degrade further into falling deeper down the hole into conspiracies about the virus being intentionally created

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life is a thing, so long as society makes a decision which doesn't absolutely minimize death rates. Why don't we ban cars as a pandemic?

There's a clear argument to defend saving 2-3 million Americans (even more world wide) that doesn't involve accusing Russia