Yeah, shutting bars down is not "at any cost". That is a hyperbolic statement at best. Other people's lives are worth more than our convenience. That being said, there is a middle ground that can sustain the economy in some fashion through the potential fall wave. A lot of it is wearing a mask and washing hands. The other part is not hanging out indoors with random strangers.
This was kind of my point, in a way. Some context: Where I live we have been very good at striking this balance for one reason or another - a fairly compliant population, high level of trust in government, demographics and maybe just some sheer luck. As of now we have 22 in hospitals of which 5 in ICU of which 2 on a ventilator. So it's a level of strain on the health system that's barely measurable and it has been like this since the march/april peak died out due to the measures implemented. Death toll is 278. Population bit over 5 mio in the country and measured in covid-19 deaths per capita we rank at 100-something in the world. And btw we do count every single one so the number is accurate give or take a very small handful. Unemployment is still higher than pre-Covid, but way, way down from the peak and by historical standards there is nothing special about the current rate. For most people life is fairly normal, but someone working in (or used to) working in hospitality, airlines or culture is probably gonna disagree with that statement.
With no measures or a non-compliant population etc the numbers would of course be higher, potentially by very, very much - that's not really debatable. But even with these - so far - very low number there is still an underlying anxiety in the population, a sense that every death from Covid-19 is a some major news item (it gets flashed in the news when it happens) and while we have the usual camps of laxing measures / keeping as is / tightening further the general consensus is that our politicians and other bodies of government have done a pretty good job so far while some details of this and that can of course be debated if should be more so or less so or skipped or if they should have done this instead of that.
If we continue at this pace for the rest of the year Covid-19 is probably gonna be among least common cause of death in the country for which there is any statistics apart from traffic deaths, of which we have very few as well. Still, even with these, on an international scale, stupid low numbers this is still seen as health risk numero uno. It isn't, it hasn't been but it could probably have been.
If we look at who has actually died from covid-19, 65% are aged 80+. If now "lives lost" has been introduced as the holy metric and what should guide society as a whole one at least has to be consistent and should also apply to other sides of life. I would for example assume that by very simple, non-invading measures like good hygiene, not sending children to school/kindergarden when sick etc a good chunk of annual deaths from the regular flu could be prevented, but it has never been even a topic of discussion despite claiming in the area of 1000 lives per year. And rinse and repeat for pretty much any cause of death that could have been prevented or at least delayed by a few years if this or that measure was taken. But people won't do that and when Covid-19 I guess everything will be back to normal and noone bar friends and family will really care when someone dies (at old age).
Humans are pretty bad at rationally assessing risks. And I don't buy it when pretty much everyone is running around claiming a sudden and great overall care for the elderly, chronically sick etc. Because it wasn't there before and I don't think it will be there afterwards when life returns to normal. If it was there to start with, quite a few things would be different.
And yes, of course inhaling a toxic substance is your own choice as opposed to getting a virus from some random person. But so is living a life that puts you in an at-risk-zone for a lot of nasty stuff including Covid-19. So if "lives" is the new currency, then it should apply elsewhere than the field of Covid-19. There are tons of lives to be saved or prolonged with much less invasive measures than we are currently seeing. Most "early" deaths come from lifestyle choices. Even these days with Covid-19 in the equation.