This is not an analogy. It's just math - the risk of dying from COVID19 if you got it is comparable to the risk of dying this year all things other than COVID19 considered. (approx 0.1% in your twenties, approx 15% in your eighties).
If getting it confers lifelong immunity (a question that does not yet have a definite answer), that means getting it means you compressed the overall risks of two years into one[0], or reduced your life expectancy by one year.
Now, one year is a lot. But the difference in life expectancy between the US (78) and Japan (84) is already six times as much, so the lockdown in that context is about 6 times more expensive (per day, per person) than moving to Japan[1] would have been before COVID19, and no one would have preached the latter.
Here's a conundrum: you can (a) lock yourself at home for 6 months, likely losing your job, potentially keeping in touch through the internet; then come back to "normal" life. (b) give up 6 months of your life expectancy, but go back to your normal life tomorrow. That is, w.r.t life expectancy, you can pause for 6 months and keep those 6 months; or fast forward those 6 months (and thus lose them). Almost everyone I know would pick (b) if there aren't any exception circumstances such as terminal disease. But the western world at large chose (a).
[0] That's not exactly true - depending on some other model parameters; reduction of life expectancy by 6-9 months is more accurate.
[1] It's not guaranteed that moving to Japan would grant you Japanese life expectancy. It is also not guaranteed that the lockdown as practiced really buys you more than a year either.
If getting it confers lifelong immunity (a question that does not yet have a definite answer), that means getting it means you compressed the overall risks of two years into one[0], or reduced your life expectancy by one year.
Now, one year is a lot. But the difference in life expectancy between the US (78) and Japan (84) is already six times as much, so the lockdown in that context is about 6 times more expensive (per day, per person) than moving to Japan[1] would have been before COVID19, and no one would have preached the latter.
Here's a conundrum: you can (a) lock yourself at home for 6 months, likely losing your job, potentially keeping in touch through the internet; then come back to "normal" life. (b) give up 6 months of your life expectancy, but go back to your normal life tomorrow. That is, w.r.t life expectancy, you can pause for 6 months and keep those 6 months; or fast forward those 6 months (and thus lose them). Almost everyone I know would pick (b) if there aren't any exception circumstances such as terminal disease. But the western world at large chose (a).
[0] That's not exactly true - depending on some other model parameters; reduction of life expectancy by 6-9 months is more accurate.
[1] It's not guaranteed that moving to Japan would grant you Japanese life expectancy. It is also not guaranteed that the lockdown as practiced really buys you more than a year either.