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Isn't Sweden a decent comparison for not locking down? And the majority of less developed countries also did minimal lockdown. And Africa as a whole has a 6% vaccination rate, so we can make comparisons

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Yup. While they had a lot of elderly die early on that's mostly been it. They certainly haven't had the issues of people missing their cancer screenings, alcoholisms/suicide due to isolation in lockdowns etc. that many other countries have had.

And Africa as a whole practically unaffected.

These are countries with much higher mortality rates already because many of their health systems are not even close to as well-funded and available as a European one. So, many fewer cancer screenings to go to. And more deaths already from other ailmants.

Also, largely these countries are much hotter and more aerated / outdoors places. So, comparisons are not particularly helpful.

At the time, there were at least claims that, well, even absent government edicts, people did adjust behaviors to a certain degree. It's unfortunate but, at this point, it's starting to look like there are so many confounding variables--and so many people dug in on political positions--that it's going to be hard to say, even with the advantage of hindsight, what optimal courses of action should have looked like. Vaccinations were almost certainly helpful on net but not a silver bullet. Other mitigations were probably more or less helpful at various stages of the pandemic but likewise were probably not as helpful as proponents said they were and some were probably on net harmful.

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