Some places have been pretty close to "let it run amok", ie indifference by the population and government, widespread antivax sentiment, etc. I'm talking about places like Bulgaria, Russia, etc. They have seen around 0.75% of the population die.
Letting the original run freely would have likely cost at least 1% of the population, plus the long covid, lack of treatment for other conditions etc.
Death counts are also hard to compare because earlier variants already killed a lot of high-risk people.
Would we rather have a widespread epidemic we know less about and can control or a less deadly one we have treatments for, but have limited control over? It's hard to say. It'll be interesting to see what happens with omicron in China where they're trying their hardest to control it.
