The problem is that it's not black/white. Close all roads to normal traffic and you'll have near-zero mortality from traffic accidents. But does that make it a smart policy?
with covid its all been a bunch of speculation and shouting
Covid is even harder to measure. One Example: You shut down elementary schools to prevent kids from getting infected; how many were pushed back into broken homes from the only safe space they had? How many will have long-term pain from learning , nutrition, physical abuse, mental health?
Most policy can be reduced to "Better safe than sorry" which completely ignores the direct and indirect costs of any action.
We know that. Not exact numbers, but at least there are rough estimates. It's been an active area of research for quite some time, so there's a lot of data. Statistically speaking, we know how childhood poverty or a missed school year means for average lifespan.
It's been theoreticized that a reason for the differences in pandemic response when it comes to Sweden are down to the fact that they recently unified all their people health issues, that is not only medical issues but also social ones, under one government agency. That broader mandate is generally more data driven and needs to take longer term effects of missing school into account.
> Most policy can be reduced to "Better safe than sorry"
That's not all there is to it. Strictly following that reasoning would emphasize known risks against unknown risks. That does not explain the policy making that dominated during the pandemic.
Kids, and many people for that matter, cannot just stay in lockdown for months like domestic cats without triggering mental health issues.