HIV, malaria, and many other diseases endemic to the third world target people in the prime of life, wreaking havoc on families. By contrast, most (not all, but most) deaths from COVID are the elderly.
Any mention of this tends to bring on "how dare you say one life is more valuable than another" downvotes, but since this thread is considering economic impact, it's a relevant factor.
You're assuming developed world demographics in your answer, which isn't accurate for countries like South Africa with relatively young populations.
Fully one fifth of South Africa's COVID-19 deaths were in the 50-59 age bracket, which includes many key experienced and highly-skilled personnel.
Another ten percent were between 40 and 49.
Sure, 44% of those who died were 60+ but to assume that had less economic impact is also incorrect: In the most hard-hit areas many of the primary caregivers for children are in that age group as grandparents who were forced to care for their grandchildren after AIDS wiped out so many of their children. COVID-19 has now left many kids double-orphaned, first with the deaths of their parents from AIDS and now the deaths of their grandparents from COVID-19.
Personally I see a teenage suicide as a result of lockdown far more tragic than an 83 year old death from covid (that's the average age of Covid death in the UK. The average age of death in the UK is 82). 60+ years of life lost versus a maybe 2 or 3.
And of course, cumulatively many more "life years" would be lost in a no-lockdown world.
But the real tragedy is you thinking stopping a real, deadly disease that affects millions of people isn't worth it because of a completely preventable death.
Stop with the suicide myth. The suicide rate actually decreased during the Covid pandemic. People are not killing themselves at greater rates because of lockdown.
Even so, preliminary numbers where available seem to show the suicide rate to be falling. So in the loss-of-years calculation, all is quite fine actually...
New rule for news consumption: stories that present poll results for a period without a baseline for comparison are trying to mislead you. What portion of people between 18-24 contemplate suicide in a given year? Turn to substance use to cope with stress?
I know that I lived my life from 18-24 without any global pandemic lockdowns and both "contemplated" suicide at different points and used substances to cope with stress. I'd assume many others did as well.
Given that we know suicides didn't go up in 2020 the way the fearmongers said they would (they went down), what are you arguing for?
How do you weigh thirty year olds that can't work or take care of their kids because they have chronic fatigue after Covid? About 10% of the milder cases still aren't fully recovered after six months. About 10% of those suffer from chronic fatigue.
Can you give me a citation on the "10% of the milder COVID cases still are not recovered after 6 months"? I haven't found any good studies on this, and the "milder" in your sentence implies that you not only found research, but you found research that breaks it down by infection severity.
My google fu is failing me when I search for it though, so I would very much appreciate a link.
"Epidemiologische Studien zeigen, dass etwa zehn Prozent der ambulanten Patienten nach sechs Monaten unter Long Covid leiden. Von diesen Patienten sind wiederum zehn Prozent vom chronischen Fatigue-Syndrom betroffen, schätzen Wissenschaftler. "
Any mention of this tends to bring on "how dare you say one life is more valuable than another" downvotes, but since this thread is considering economic impact, it's a relevant factor.