That's not true though. Even if the government does nothing you still have people altering their behavior out of fear. More online shopping, working from home, less traveling, activities outside the home. Looking at Sweden where they didn't lock down, I would say that seems a very large part of the change in economic activity.

And because the virus tends to get more out of control, this change is magnified compared to when the government takes action. Is it really better for the economy over the long term to lockdown or not? I don't think we know the answer one way or the other.

To take the extreme example. China was the epicenter of the pandemic, took the strongest government action and snuffed it out. Now our economy suffers while theirs does much better. Maybe our problem is we couldn't be as extreme as them, we don't have a hope of eliminating it in our countries in the West through lockdowns.