It's a direct and honest way to put it. Which would you prefer? Should the US lock down and save hundreds of thousands of lives, or would you rather keep restaurants open? It's easy to muse about hypothetical questions about how many people should die before the government should act, but this is too serious an issue for sophistry. There are consequences here.
> Restaurants closing for a month also has real people attached to it. People who lose their livelihood and don't have an ample safety net to keep them afloat.
Restaurants can be compensated. Their employees and customers will be safer for it.
> it is an authoritarian action
There's nothing authoritarian about it. It's a reasonable, rational response to a health crisis taken by a democratically elected government. It's just as "authoritarian" as mandating seatbelts or childhood vaccinations.
> China was as successful as it was in such measures because it is inherently authoritarian, the US has been less successful because it isn't, and has deep-rooted propaganda against it.
And that goes for authoritarian New Zealand and Australia too, I suppose? Populations in highly democratic countries will actually support strong lockdown measures if they believe they will be effective and if the government compensates people financially. The President of the US has been whipping up opposition to any rational public health measures, from face masks to lockdowns. That doesn't help for public acceptance of rational measures. But if it truly is impossible to gain public support for lockdowns in the US, then something is deeply wrong with American society.