Maybe the government should have paid people so they could stay home? But that's communism and then no one will work and who will bring us our McDonald's order during the outbreak

You seem to not comprehend how completely unworkable such a solution is for a country as broad as the US.

Also, we did try, it was called Payroll Protection and it was an epic fail.

We paid 2k$ a month for people to stay at home in Canada and it was quite an issue with low income jobs.

They did.

How do you measure "questionable benefits"? As a Government you have to protect every single citizen. Lifes have been saved because of lockdowns, vaccination, masks, etc. Not doing that and letting everybody get Covid to see who survives is barbaric. I know that it's no seen that way in the US since this has been your culture but you should accept that it's not seen that way in civilized countries.

Lives have also been lost because of lockdowns, vaccination, masks, etc. Pretending that lockdowns have no collateral damage upon families, businesses, education, and so on is barbaric. And pretending that people aren't allowed to weigh the pros and cons of these actions without being called names is also not the hallmark of a civilized country.

What is your point? Would you have wanted EVEN MORE dead people?

Nobody is pretending that lockdown hurt people. This is a strawman.

*Nobody is pretending that lockdown DIDN'T hurt people.