"Are we destroying the economy....." Who are "we" ?
Given that other countries with similar options available have done far better than the UK with only one significant hit on the economy, my assessment is that "we" have failed to deal with the pandemic in the most effective way. Decision making quality has been well below what it could be (perhaps in the main political failure) and lacpublic compliance has widely been irresponsible.
The UK has several advantages over countries with extensive land borders, although different countries within the UK do not have the same individual room for manoeuvre against the challenges - each has to largely follow the others (mainly the largest). Being a set of islands, the most successful island models could have been replicated - let's not ask for the UK to be a shining example of success.
Not one country worldwide has been untouched (incredible claims dismissed). While New Zealand has shown impressive success, I find myself looking more closely at Iceland which is part of Europe and the internally borderless Schengen community. An island with the tourist industry forming a large part of the economy was prepared from the very start of this year, had a worrying start to the pandemic which saw groups of infected people return from ski resorts in Austria (google Ischgl Scandal) and Italy plant the first viruses. Immediate measures were taken and the "first wave" was over in nine weeks - 1800 cases, 10 deaths. The "second wave" hit in mid August and they are now down to single digit daily case numbers (including zero) in the past couple of weeks - 350 cases, no deaths. They are now down to the lowest level of restrictions having briefly ramped them up again. But daily there are cases caught at the border - currently anyone arriving from abroad is tested, placed into quarantine for five days and retested. The tourist industry has suffered badly but a successful campaign for staycations softened the blow this summer.
How was it done ? To me the answer is pretty clear, instead of obfuscation, indecision, confusion or whatever, the scientists, police, etc. were put in charge by the politicians who authorised the former at every turn. The public was kept extremely well informed throughout. Crucially, the public complied and reaped the rewards. There have apparently been more or less no recriminations public v authorities or vice versa. In fact, a survey in the past week or so showed that 67% approved of the measures/restrictions laid down with the rest more or less evenly split between wanting less restrictions and/or more restrictions. There is absolutely not a word of a call for scalps, political or official/scientific.
Nothing tells me the UK could not have been far, far more successful than it has been or likely will be. Icelanders (and others) simply are better at it than the UK. Then why has the UK so abysmally failed, being among the worst examples worldwide ? I don't think the circumstances, geographic, economic, climatic, scientific or so much else are at fault. Although some/many may disagree with me, I am uncertain the politicians are to blame either - unless it were because they should much more have kept out of the decision making proper. What I think is at the core of the failure, so much so that failure was inevitable, is the culture. I think the UK thought victory was assured, because the UK deserves it as the World's best - taking the threat seriously was something of an anathema and still has not come about. A state of denial is, however, now turning into a search for a place to dump blame or else find simple solutions. Worst of all, UK society is hopelessly disunited - not just between constituent countries but (much worse) internally throughout.
A vaccine is now the UK's last hope but meanwhile and forever more somewhere north toward 50,000 lives have been unnecessarily lost. Any blame for this lies with "us", the people who were/are ungovernable ...