I won't fact check the numbers ("hundreds of thousands"), and simply reply to the intent of your missive. Or what I think is the intent.

Yes, it's true. Some small businesses went under. Kids were negatively affected in terms of education. That is verifiable from many sources.

And while it's difficult to put a number on lives saved, there is little dispute among the studies I have seen that many thousands (millions?) of lives were saved by the lockdowns. Had this been more virulent, officials probably would be being criticized now for acting too slowly to limit travel, isolate people, and try to reduce the spread. Because it only had about a 4% mortality, people are criticizing the "overreaction".

IMHO, it's better to overreact until you KNOW, rather than say "it's no problem, go on with your lives" when you DON'T know. You can always walk protections back, but you can't really contain a spread that's already out of control. Err on the side of caution.

The only good thing that came from that was parents became keenly aware of the crap that was being taught and the tendency for schools to keep the parents out of the loop.

Not my experience with public schools. 1poorkid's schools kept us extremely well-informed. That was a decade ago now, but I don't think policies have changed much. Granted, one data point.