Yet, the article boils everything down to 6 grossly oversimplified "dichotomies". You don't find that incredibly ironic? For example it's not "health-lives vs economy-livelihoods" its "covid health vs other health conditions, mental health, education, economy, livelihoods, social well-being etc." We've isolated one issue above everything else. These aren't 1v1 issues, these are 1v1,000's of issues.
I appreciate you providing this, there is some thoughtful questions and good information. The problem is there is just a ton of conflicting information out there, much of which pretends you can isolate cause and effect to a single variable. You can't, life doesn't exist in a lab.
The other problem is the pace at which information is changing. Pre-pandemic X was true, and had been true for a very long time. That X has now changed 5 times in the last 18 months. I appreciate that X can change as more information becomes available, but you can't expect everyone to jump on the bandwagon every time X changes. A reasonable person is going to say "hey, wait a second....".
I also find this statement incredibly arrogant:
Public health experts, economists, social scientists, and bioethicists must work jointly to assist governments in shaping the best policies that protect
the overall societal well-being.
These are ivory tower, 10,000 foot view people. I want people on the ground floor and front lines giving input. People that deal with issues in real life on a day to day basis. Not some lab or university classroom hermit deciding what's best for me and my neighbors.
I appreciate that the pandemic is unprecedented, but pre-pandemic if you had sent your kid to school and out in public with a N95 mask for the entirety of the flu season, you would be getting reported to CPS by someone, likely a teacher, and rightly so. That's fucked up that this behavior is perfectly acceptable now given the negligible risk to children and its not the children's responsibility to protect adults.