Who is saying lock downs are benign? I will happily join you in arguing against them.
With the actions and behaviors we're currently engaged in from a societal perspective, I'd say that's a pretty strong indicator of how benign we think they are. A good place to look is California's guidelines for returning to normal. One could always theoretically argue that they know lockdown's aren't benign, but the actions indicate more strongly where this is valued, and how seriously (or not) that's considered.
Do you think the epidemiologists who recommend protective measures (say, those at the CDC) are ignoring the costs of these restrictions in their calculations, or is this more of a complaint about media coverage?
I'd answer this more indirectly. Physicians know what the true standard of care is. In a legal definition, and in court, you're held to what's considered the standard of care, and the standard of care varies by situation and location. It's what's considered the practicing standard for that specific locale. So a general surgeon may have to operate emergently on an infant in Farmington, New Mexico, and be within standard of care, but that same procedure may not fall under standard of care for a general surgeon in Los Angeles as it may need to be preformed by a pediatric surgeon. But since there is no available pediatric surgeon in Farmington, the standard changes. But then there are artificial standards of care. Standards that do not at all reflect best-evidence but
do reflect common practice. These are artificial standards of care (my term). This is how people would be judged in court or in a malpractice case, even if that standard isn't based on any evidence. This is when a physician's fear, not of doing the right thing, but by
appearing to do the wrong thing, leads to a change in their practice habit. For instance, someone is stating that they are suicidal, but perhaps they are malingering (using this for some other secondary gain). A patient may assert some level of power because they feel the physician is bound by certain fears (discharging a patient from the hospital when they claim they are suicidal). As physician's themselves may know very well that the person is malingering, they will be hesitant to discharge someone in that circumstance purely for how it looks on paper, even though they know otherwise, because ultimately it is lay society who judges outcomes. So out of this arises an artificial standard of care that's more reflective of societal expectation. Epidemiologists are irrelevant. The media, society, and politicians drive this vehicle. As a result, the epidemiologists (and hell, even very unqualified people) who are pushing evidence more consistent with media, society, and politician's view points are the ones that become promoted and further reinforce public opinion through availability bias. A good example of this is from a post a few pages back that I was going to respond to (may never will get to) that mentioned the importance of 'listening to the experts' such as the University of Washington model for COVID. When the hysteria was kicking up regarding millions dead in the US, I had brought up the University of Washington model a couple different times (in March and April). It was much more conservative regarding projections at the time, but there were literally no responses and absolutely nobody was talking about this model in any fashion (here or otherwise). But now that there model is updated for showing a more drastic picture for this fall/winter, it's now being talked about. And we're holding it up as 'listen to the scientists' when we weren't at all interested in listening to this science until it showed results we were more interested in.
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