We don’t have the figures yet, that’s why we think lockdowns helped. But cholesterol doesn’t kill immediately. Alcohol doesn’t kill immediately. Loneliness doesn’t kill immediately, it slowly settles as friendships got destroyed in anger during the pandemic, and new meetups didn’t arrive, and the guy becomes homeless 5 years later. It may take years, but a lot of human misery will have been triggered by choosing lockdowns. We don’t even have the figures yet.
> severely limits the spread of an airborne virus
Yes, while we’re locked, and then it just takes weeks to recirculate as normal. It took >1 year to get the vaccines, only a 1 year lockdown would have solved us, therefore it is …not a solution to anything to lock people down.
Not a secret that solitary confinement in prisons is used to destroy someone. Lockdowns made a lot of people completely crazy, particularly the people you don’t notice immediately. But who cares, we’ve solved Covid! Wait, we didn’t.
Edited to add: furthermore, in most countries deaths not related to Covid fell drastically compared to previous years, including suicides. Yes, the fallout medium-long term is still to come, but you can't deny that it did stop the immediate very dangerous impact. In countries like Italy and France military hospitals had to be deployed, and many in intensive care were transferred to neighbouring countries. You can't just dismiss this and say people stuck alone at home had it worse than those on the ventilators.
However, the question is do lockdowns help against a pandemic? I don't see how anyone can argue with that. The downsides are indeed significant and need to be taken into account, but it's just a fact that lockdowns severely limit the spread of an airborne virus like COVID-19.