The absolute number of cases is large, but so is the collateral damage. Both scale with the population so the trade-off doesn't depend on any absolute numbers a

The absolute number of cases is large, but so is the collateral damage. Both scale with the population so the trade-off doesn't depend on any absolute numbers and citing them is simply misleading. 0.0002% per month is still just 0.0024% per year. Don't forget that more than 1% of the population die each year to begin with.