So now the number of free icu beds in hospital and number of death are the only kpi we look at to make decisions?

It is crazy how people opinion like mine is fully ignored in Europe. today we tolerate flu deaths so that people can live freely, why shouldn't we tolerate covid deaths to live freely?

One reason of many: flu deaths don't overwhelm hospital capacity. If someone dies from flu, it's generally not because of lack of available care. When hospital capacity is overwhelmed, people die that wouldn't otherwise die. If covid overwhelms hospital capacity, then people will die because of lack of available care. And so therefore, people dying from lack of available care is valued as "worse" than people dying with sufficient medical care.

And so if you equate the two, a lot of people think that is crazy.

We don't tolerate flu deaths. We actually work hard every single year to prevent them - providing inoculations for the sick and vulnerable for one thing. People die in spite of all the efforts we put into preventing them from doing so.

Because the standard of care that people receive in a regular flu season is with a health service that can say that it gave someone the intensive care they needed, but unfortunately it didn't work out.

With covid left unchecked, the intensive care isn't intensive at all because the health care resources are spread more thinly.

Over a large enough population, this will lead to many more deaths that would not have happened had those people not been in a healthcare system that was overwhelmed.

So as a society we'd be saying that "these people died because our health service was overwhelmed, we knew that this would happen if we didn't lock down, and we chose to not lock down anyway".

>It is crazy how people opinion like mine is fully ignored in Europe.

I don't believe it's crazy that your opinion is ignored. I think it's rational and moral to do the opposite of your opinion.

I just happen to think your opinion is selfish and deliberately and unproductively obtuse.

Because it's not possible to 'tolerate' them - left unchecked it would overwhelm our health service, destroy the economy, and cripple society.

Your proposal is a fantasy; it sounds as if you're wishing this was similar in effect and scope to the flu (and I'm sure we all wish that) but clearly that seems not to be the case

For every 1,000 diagnosed covid case, roughly 14-18 of them will eventually die. Rich or poor countries alike, that range has been consistent.

Wouldn't you say that's rather staggeringly high number to simply let things run course?

in which universe is 0.018% a "staggeringly high number"

You will tolerate deaths until it becomes a loved one or yourself. At that point you'll realise that all you need to do is stop being an idiot and understand that with some restrictions we can significantly reduce deaths and at some point in the near future resume "free life".

"It's crazy" how much people are willing to risk just because they can't be patient.

> You will tolerate deaths until it becomes a loved one or yourself.

Couldn't you argue that a loved one may die because of the consequences of the lockdown? Undiagnosed cancer, depression, suicide, aftermath of the ruined economy? Is anyone keeping this tally?

Hard to get a diagnosis when the hospital is overrun with people dying in line, friend.

To the other points: yes, things will be hard. We can quantify how hard each approach will be.

In the case of a lockdown, there will be orders of magnitude fewer deaths.

A tally is being kept—all the numbers were run before a lockdown was even considered. The only reason this debate continues is because so many ignore the hard work medical administrations, public health departments, virologists, economists, and policy makers have already done.

because tolerating flu deaths doesn't completely overwhelm healthcare systems?

The people that have serious cases of the flu don't overwhelm the hospitals because a good part of the vulnerable population get vaccinated. The herd immunity also plays a role because this kind of virus has been around for a long time.

We could decide that lockdowns / restrictions are not good but then we also have to be okay with letting lot of people die gasping for air and drowning in their own lungs at home / in the hospital corridors. As much as I hate not being able to socialize how I like I still prefer that and it seem to also be the case for most of the population.

I have no idea if we'll ever be able to eradicate the Covid but if we don't it might become just an other flu when enough people are vaccinated or had it.