Random question: why are we saying, "the economic toll of covid," rather than, "the economic toll of the response to covid?" If the lockdowns hadn't happened, more would have died, but presumably the economy would be fine.
What actually happened in stupid countries is that they reacted too late, too lightly, and everyone's been complaining that "oh the cost was too high". It takes a lockdown of ONE month, enforced strictly, to clear out COVID from the population and resume effectively normal activity (you still need to limit international passenger travel but that's proportionally far simpler).
I'm not terribly well connected socially so I don't take it as a universal, but the people I've heard about having it are a single friend of a friend and my doctor's husband (she volunteered the info during a routine appointment).
So the responses are more visible in peoples minds than the pandemic, and they are thinking intuitively about it, not reasoning about the precarious situation that (pretty much continuously) exists with such a fast spreading infection.
It's why Herman Cain's staff kept tweeting even after he died from COVID. And why people in the White House have been making a big show of hosting superspreader events, even as so many of them have to rely on the best medicine other people's money can buy to recover. Ultimately, I don't think there's a way to understand it rationally, because as you say, it's not rational; it's an emotional response.
(Unless you mean countries like New Zealand where the second wave just isn't happening)
There is a lag between cases and death, and death and the publication of cumulative reports on all-cause mortality.
If you happened to have read anything on the topic during the first wave, you'd know as much. Because it was repeated ad nauseam, until it became too ridiculous for even the most dedicated to keep on insisting that there were no excess deaths.
The 'lag' is accounted for in that most 'second wave' places have past the peak over their waves.
Deaths were 'higher' in the second wave in places that had a small first wave, like Austria.
But for places that had a 'real' first wave, the second wave was generally milder in terms of overall deaths, and much milder in terms of CFR.
We can't ignore the real risk of 'waves' but it's also important not to deny the nuanced reality of them. In particular, the 'second wave' had many more younger people, probably accounting for the lower case fatality rate.
Do you really think shops were full and everyone was out an about just ignoring their health (and potentially death) just because of some government mandate? Do you think people don't have their own will or brain?
Restaurants, shops, and bars have fewer customers, but they and other business is surviving.
That is just one data point, but it’s something
"Sweden's neighbours offer them emergency help as its hospitals fill up with coronavirus patients"
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-offered-urgent-corona...
Our hospitals already suffered from lines long enough for people to die before getting care. Waiting in line is always the result of socialist government monopolies, and this was the case before COVID as well.
https://emanuelkarlsten.se/number-of-deaths-in-sweden-during...
To recover the economy you have to suppress the virus. Period. There's no magic wand to let people party away.