By the time the world found out that Covid was nasty but not as virulent as feared, it had embarked on a course of action that those responsible could never accept might have been wrong. Moreover, the death toll means that they will never be persuaded otherwise and the UK Government can say, with some justification, that it avoided the national health service being overwhelmed.
…The fact that five times as many people died from non-Covid related conditions (some exacerbated by the lockdown) is a reminder of our mortality. Moreover, the deaths of around 600,000 people every year does not constitute an annual disaster but the normal end-of-life phenomenon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/23/history-may-conclude-thelockdowns-dreadful-mistake/