You are begging the question, in its proper sense, by defining the matter in that way because your wording assumes the answer that economic damage and deaths are a trade off. My hypothesis is that economic damage is caused by the virus getting out of control so that the correct way of dealing with it is stringent early measures, which obviate the need for longer term late ones.
There is a good reason to take this as the starting point, because there is a constraint on the system which is the capacity of the hospitals to treat those with the virus. Once this is reached then you start getting knock on effects in deaths from other untreated illnesses so you then have almost no choice but to put in heavy constraints to restrict further growth.
My background is in physics and nuclear power. The virus spread is exactly the same mathematically as a nuclear chain reaction. Exponential growth is most easily containable by early intervention.
