There's no reason why the approach shouldn't be questioned and that is a good article on what Sweden are doing, but you need to be careful about language and saying 'the usual emotive response'.
This effects everyone of us and if anyone has family and friends with underlying health conditions and / or who are elderly, they will be very worried right now.
You are certainly right to point out that damaging the economy could cause a lot of hardship and problems down the line. Lock downs may have a lot of unintended consequences for mental health too. However, the vast majority of the world has chosen to go down this path and we are all pretty much in this together.
There are lots of unknowns, Spanish flu killed between 50m to 100m between 1918 to 1920. We simply don't know what would happen if it was allowed to go unchecked.
We just need to get through this and protect as many lives as possible and also health because it can be very nasty long term if you catch covid-19 and can scar your lungs, causing respiratory problems for life.