Probably it did. And we prevented the medical system from being overrun. In fact the medical system is failing now because nobody wants to visit their doctor at the moment. The problem was the period after "curve flattening". The over-the-top authoritarianism seen in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania are going to stay in people's minds for awhile. Who is going to forget being told they cannot access their cabins or vacation homes? I see that Whitmer has been smacked down by the court and the 77-year old barber is free to conduct his business. About time.
Waiting for the reports of suicides in 2020 before weighing in on whether we really saved lives by shutting down the country for the sniffles for a full year. I'm guessing 30+% real unemployment likely jacked suicide rates up 10 fold. But hey "we're all in this together" right? Or at least that what the Democrat politburo tells me. Two people I know lost their businesses because despite having no covid risk the governor shut down all but essential businesses. Guess they're just collateral damage in the great "war against the sniffles" right? After the dust settled covid has an R0 of 0.4. Its absolutely non-lethal unless you're in a group where any other sickness could be lethal (immunocompromised, elderly, young). Even though initially I had thought the same thing I've recently revised my opinion that this thing is a borderline nothingburger. CDC is already revising it's safety rules and have recently announced it can't even be spread except through inhalation. More people die to the combination of respiratory illness induced by smoking, smog, and cancer than would have died even with adjusted estimates for covid. Time for America to grow up.
And yet, extreme liberal states are still pretty much shutdown by their Democrat governors and they wonder why the other states are doing much better? President Donald Trump winning again as Democrat governors destroy their states and create huge numbers of permanent jobs lost. That is not counting the businesses, torched, looted, destroyed during the riots.
Facts are indisputable and since there is no actaul evidence to support your claim we will never really know how many, if any were saved at all. We'll also never know if resulting economic devastation could have been avoided had such draconian measures not been taken. We never tried, so we'll never know.