It really doesn't.
> It would be pretty bold to make that claim. Do you have any reliable source to indicate that it was?
"Pandemics kill people in two ways, said Chris Whitty at the start of the Covid outbreak: directly and indirectly, via disruption.
He was making the case for caution amidst strong public demand for lockdown, stressing the tradeoffs.
While Covid deaths were counted daily, the longer-term effects would take years to come through. The only real way of counting this would be to look at ‘excess deaths’, i.e. how many more people die every month (or year) compared to normal.
That data is now coming through."[0]
EDIT - adding:
"COVID-19 lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” according to this peer-reviewed new academic study. The draconian policy failed to significantly reduce deaths while imposing substantial social, cultural, and economic costs.
“This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,” according to one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Lars Jonung, professor emeritus at the Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies at Sweden’s Lund University, “It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society. Most likely lockdowns represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.” "
and
"The Herby-Jonung-Hanke meta-analysis found that lockdowns, as reported in studies based on stringency indices in the spring of 2020, reduced mortality by 3.2 per cent when compared to less strict lockdown policies adopted by the likes of Sweden
This means lockdowns prevented 1,700 deaths in England and Wales, 6,000 deaths across Europe, and 4,000 deaths in the United States."
and
"The research concludes that, unless substantial alternative evidence emerges, lockdowns should be ‘rejected out of hand’ to control future pandemics."
[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-covid-and-excess-... [1] https://iea.org.uk/media/lockdowns-were-a-costly-failure-fin...