RE: The success of the lockdowns is shown in the evidence. During the first year of the pandemic when there were widespread lockdowns, people were working from home, and stores were delivering merchandise curbside, there were 350,831 deaths directly caused by Covid.
I’m not sure I agree with that. Here in the USA, lockdowns were not implemented uniformly with some states like Florida more lax than others ( they locked down for 29 days in April 2020, but that was it). Florida’s death rates were not higher than stricter lockdown states like NY or NJ.
Elsewhere in Europe, Sweden never locked down. Instead, the Swedish government relied on voluntary social distancing measures and recommendations to curb the spread of the virus. The Swedish death rates were not much different from many stricter lockdown countries.
There is no conclusive evidence based on statistics to show that strict lockdowns are more effective.
Here is an interactive table containing the statistics about deaths and cases in the US: Worldometer - United States.
Florida is at #3 for total number of deaths, right after California and Texas. Absolute numbers aren't very helpful, though--a better parameter is incidence per million population, since this normalizes the data among the states. In terms of cases per million population, Florida sits at #8. In deaths per million population, Florida comes in at #10. Neither of these are very good statistics.
Also, while the state of Florida might have dropped certain statewide mandates early on, there were still mandates in place. In 2021, we went to Universal Studios twice. At the time, Universal Studios required guests to wear face masks. Whenever we go to Orlando, we also visit the Kennedy Space Center--which also enforced mask use.
Now I will compare the Florida statistics to the statistics of the two states with higher total deaths than Florida.
Texas stands at #34 in cases per million, and #33 in deaths per million. This isn't too bad, despite Governor Abbott's early decision to lift mandates. What happened in Texas is that the Texas department of health put up billboards in English and Spanish all over encouraging people to get vaccinated. The state of Texas put up a vaccine-finder website to help people locate available vaccines. The city of San Antonio organized massive vaccine drives at the Alamodome where tens of thousands of people got vaccinated in a fairly short period of time. The public education effort is still going on in Texas.
California implemented stricter mandates. It comes in at #30 in cases per million and #41 in terms of deaths per million. I do not know how California went about distributing vaccines. Given that the cases are higher and deaths are lower in California vs. in Texas, I surmise that the population of California had a higher vaccine uptake.
These statistics indicate that the approaches in California and Texas are a lot more successful at saving lives than Florida's approach.