To be honest, I think the numbers of unnecessary non-covid deaths during and following lockdown will far overshadow covid deaths.
To be clear, I am so very sorry that anyone had to lose their lives to this condition that seems a total lottery, in terms of impacts and outcomes, but the world has to resume normality sometime.
At the moment, we may have rules and laws in place instructing actions in the event of symptoms and positive tests, but I feel pretty certain many, many folks are already adopting Thursday's position, and have been for many weeks.
Many are not able to just not go to work if they have a headache or experience any of the plethora of covid symptoms, the list of which seems to have grown near daily.
I have been involved with out local Vaccine Hub since the beginning of the vaccination programme, and the things folks do and are happy to say they have done sometimes beggars belief. For example, turning up for a jab, within a few days of a positive test (no jab until 28 days+ after a positive test). Some could call that seperation to have the jab through fear, others mindless selfish behaviour
Over time, it appears LFTs are less accurate, once individuals have had one or more doses of the vaccine. In the words of a GP colleague, "LFTs? They're not worth the plastic they're made of".
Moving forward, how can people actually be sure they have covid? Some folks have been testing daily, when asymptomatic, "because they have grandchildren". I'm not sure if they fear giving covid to the grandchildren or fear transmission the other way.
From my perspective, the last couple of years have disabled some folks - literally and figuratively. We have all been told how to behave and what to do. Many folks just don't think for themselves any more.
Of course there will be downsides to lifting restrictions, but there will also be big advantages.