Most commenters here seem to implicitly accept the framing of the discussion around stay-at-home orders as some sort of tradeoff between different values – for example, saving lives versus protecting the economy, or freedom versus safety. But has anyone considered whether stay-at-home orders have actually saved lives overall?

The UN estimated [0][1] that between 83 million and 132 million people will go hungry around the world because of anti-COVID measures. Some of these people will die from starvation or malnutrition. Some of them will die from other preventable health problems later in life.

According to the Stop TB Partnership, a three-month lockdown followed by a gradual return to normal over 10 months could result in an additional 6.3 million cases of tuberculosis and 1.4 million deaths between 2020 and 2025. [2][3]

It's also plausible that lockdowns could lead to hundreds of thousands of additional deaths from each of HIV/AIDS [4], malaria [5], and several other diseases, though I'm not as confident about these numbers.

I am sure someone will be tempted to respond with some variant on "we could have avoided these deaths by tuning the stay-at-home restrictions more competently." Of course, that's true; but the point is that we didn't. We never do. Historically, every society that has tried to eliminate "non-essential" jobs through central planning has eventually found that even when the planners operate with the very best of intentions, they still make mistakes. Dealing with one problem causes a cascade of other subtle changes with real, harmful consequences, which are harder to mitigate when people aren't allowed to freely choose how to spend their own resources. Meanwhile, problems that are judged to be less important are forgotten, because planners can only focus on a limited number of tasks at one time. Human societies are incredibly complex. Trying to manage them from the top is like developing software using the waterfall model: it would work perfectly with perfect planning, but we all know how that works out in real life.

On a personal level: a relative passed away from cancer recently. Cancer isn't a good way to die at the best of times; and I'll be honest, she almost certainly would not have survived even with better medical treatment. But if hospitals hadn't shut down "elective" and "non-essential" care, she could have gone through a lot less pain and suffering. I am not trying to use this as a bludgeon – I understand there are also a lot of people who have suffered greatly from COVID, and of course, we should make policy based on what's best for everyone rather than a small number of anecdotes. But when I read comments saying things like "I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people"... let's just say that I don't know how to respond to that without severely violating HN guidelines.

[0]: https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2020/

[1]: https://africa.cgtn.com/2020/07/17/who-urges-world-not-to-fo...

[2]: http://www.stoptb.org/assets/documents/news/Modeling%20Repor...

[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/health/coronavirus-tuberc...

[4]: https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/11-05-2020-the-cost-of-...

[5]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1025-y