I am not sure if any of those alternative treatments caused harm directly, more so indirectly by causing people to avoid actual treatment, avoid vaccination if they are high risk (diabetic for example) etc... ivermectin is pretty harmless stuff. I am a believer in alternative medicine in the sense that, exercise, diet mods, supps do have an impact. You could throw peptides in there as well and off label stuff- phenibut, nootropics etc..
That's the thing - there was no "actual treatment". It was "stay home unless it gets so bad you have to go to the hospital". Doctors on the front lines who were trying alternate methods and sharing success publicly were vilified.
I think the problem was we didn't know. I think it's unfair to judge those decisions in hindsight without proper context.
This is probably where you and I have the widest gap in opinion - I agree "we didn't know" existed, but you give much more leeway here than I do. For example, we did know early on that outdoor transmission was unlikely, but governors like Newsom still closed the beaches and filled the skate parks with sand, and arrested those who didn't comply. There was no "science" that said you needed a mask to walk to your table in a restaurant, but could remove it once you sat. Or that you had to limit gatherings to 10, but if you were protesting, 100 was cool.
And my bigger problem, which I have been consistent on, was not as much the "we didn't know", but the suppression of conflicting opinions and the lack of honesty about the situation.
It's a hard call with public health. There is a certain duty to others as we live in a society. If it reduced the burden on hospitals and reduced transmission (which is only does mildly at best) I can see the risks being worth it. Vaccines have pretty low risks and it's established that the virus has more risks for myocarditis for example. I simply didn't like the shaming and forced nature of it. I had friends lose their jobs and I am not sure what the right answer there was. I know folks losing their businesses was pretty brutal to see.
It IS hard with public health. There's the old dilemma of "do you let the bus of 30 kids go off a cliff, if it means it will save 1000 other people". I think that's kind of what they were doing with vaccine, meaning they knew certain folks were going to have side effects, but overall they felt the math would work (this is purely my thought, didn't read this anywhere).
The problem with this is you constantly hammer and message "safe and effective", all it takes is one person to lose a family member from the vax, and confidence is shaken. Then you get a network of folks in the same situation, and now half the population thinks the gov't is full of shit. The sheep media was complicit in this. They should have been more honest about personal choice, the possible risks, etc.....but they were not - those who didn't take the shot were vilified, and the media was constant with this messaging.
I am definitely torn on the situation, the medical side of me see's the arguments, I have read the papers but that morphs when you have politicians dictating policy that can have ulterior motives (financial etc). That's how it's always been though. I am not sure if our saturation with information has made it more obvious but I can't imagine it was less corrupt 2 years ago when there was zero oversight.
Yeah, I think about this too. Take the media - people say "I wish it more honest like back then with Walter Cronkite".......and now I'm like, it would have actually been EASIER to control the narrative back then simply because it took fewer outlets to control.