It is not the deaths that are making us isolate. It is the fear that we run out of hospital beds, and that people die who would not have otherwise died.
We are somewhat crass people, but not that crass. Plus, if a person dies of pnemonia, we accept it. If we hear that a person died because they were refused treatment because some politician didn’t do something and we ran out of hospital beds, the politician will be gone.
So, we have to endure this stupid isolation for a month, in the hopes that it will slow the curve enough that when we lift it, the number of cases only goes up slowly, and we can handle it.
Meanwhile, now that we are protecting nursing homes (Trump directed NHS to do full inspections of old folks places to make sure the disaster in washington is not repeated, it looks like the number of serious and critical cases we are getting is extremely low. We seem to have a LOT of somewhat younger people picking up the virus, not very many old people (the opposite of Italy), so we are not using hospitals as much, and maybe we won’t ever.
You run into problems when you begin to utilize subjective, personal measurements. What is your threshold for "crass"; is it any different from my opinion that we shouldn't put people in nursing homes? Why not spend hundreds of $billions affording the elderly with continued, participatory lives? Oh, you say there's some arbitrary age, maybe 75-80, were we diminish direct, individual support and begin warehousing them? OK, well, you have your number and I have mine.
Ok, for arguments sake, I accept your argument that it's not primarily CV deaths, but severe illness that, due to excess demand, may result in higher than usual mortality rates. Please be aware that I'm well versed in the logic - if you check my posting history, I spent a lot of time attempting to educate people on these very issues of exponential growth.
So, we get back to the essential cost-benefit analysis, which in your estimation is "crass" if it surpasses a certain, arbitrary threshold. May I ask what your opinion is about government leaders, who 60-70 years ago calculated expected casualty rates in the event of nuclear war with the USSR. Were they "crass" in addressing this fundamental, existential issue, all the while making preparations for government continuity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_continuity_of_operations
At some point, all the adults are going to have to put on their big-boy pants, and have a real, meaningful discussion about the price of freedom. Are we to compromise our core civil liberties, including private property, freedom of assembly/movement, due process, etc for an exchange of presumed safety? If we were never going to accept Soviet victory/domination at any price, then why would we accept a virtual collective gulag guarded by recently empowered bureaucrats?
I'm not necessarily dismissing the prospect of 1-5-10-15 million dead, but who/why were leaders from previous generations able to make these kinds of decisions with our continued freedoms protected for posterity in mind?