I guess a large component of why countries are shutting down the economies etc isn’t just because of the total number of people who are dying from Covid-19, but because of the potential for an insurmountable strain on the health care system the creates significantly more non covid deaths than a non-strained health care system.

Yeah, the world does live with high levels of various disease. Suicide in NZ for example kills over 650 people per annum, covid only 25. The government isn’t stopping the country for the suicide pandemic. But they did shut down for covid. Because of the knowledge that if it gets out of control and the health care system is beyond capacity the amount of people with cancer, diabetes, appendicitis etc won’t drop, but they will become more fatal without hospital access