The argument I think was never any concrete number of deaths. Our constitution (Germany) at least makes quantitative and qualitative arguments about human life difficult (epidemiology can still inform political decisions).

Normally the pandemic would have been considered an increased risk of life: restriction of basic freedom would have been cancelled by any court. However, we saw triage like situations in countries around us. At the beginning of the pandemic France supposingly had people dying in elderly care because the hospitals were overloaded. Italy and Portugal were close to a failure of their hospital system.

Now with many people vaccinated and omicron in the game the situation is different. But I also see this slowly acknowledged by political decision makers. This does not excuse the often really messy and not consistent, often randomly changing rules. There were prepared protocols for (influenca) pandemics but they were not enacted when the WHO announced the pandemic. We IMHO never got ahead of what was happening since.

I am currently having COVID being healthy and boostered, I am quite happy that I did not catch it earlier.