We'll likely get a good idea of what the "no or low response" route looks like.
With poorer countries (which applies to most of Africa), I guess it'll take several months or years until we know what the excess death rate was. Esp. in rural communities, that data probably often won't be reported as a Covid death. Even Northern Italy had an excess death rate 2x as high as the reported deaths and they had all the attention.
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833623311/in-sweden-a-differe...
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268263/sweden-coronavi...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212365/Swedish-PM-...
The data both articles present for Sweden's death and infection rates also seem to suggest new measures might not be necessary (though admittedly the data seems pretty noisy; the recent drop in new deaths/infections could just be a fluke).
> But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nearly everywhere (I'm not aware of a poll that shows the opposite).
Now I don't want to speculate why people are in favor. Maybe because they believe experts but that usually doesn't work well.. I guess public opinion during the outbreak is also going to be a heavily researched area for years to come.
Maybe not doing anything would've resulted in a few months of medical chaos and not much more, maybe it would've destroyed whole societies. But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nearly everywhere (I'm not aware of a poll that shows the opposite). In democracies, you'd expect politicians to act if the majority and experts support it.