We aren't stopping deaths. We've only slowed the transmission rate. The death total will be the same as if we didn't take precautions in the end.
Current precautions where only to ensure healthcare is not flooded, (which hasn't and most likely won't happen). Those who are going to die are going to die no matter what. The average person is not going to drop dead (most won't even have symptoms) if they are infected.
I'm sorry, but this is not accurate at all. The death rate would not be the same, for many reasons.
1) Keeping everything open and letting the virus circulate freely would overwhelm hospitals. This is what originally drove up the death rate in Italy and China - healthcare being overwhelmed and people dying needlessly due to lack of resources. New York came close to being overwhelmed. If society was completely open, it would have been.
2) The shutdowns had a delaying effect that will likely save some lives. We may not have a vaccine this year, but in the second half of 2020 we may have better therapeutics for dealing with the disease, better preparation (more beds, more PPE), better knowledge of how the disease spreads and behaves, and a society that is taking better precautions.
3) We don't know what immunity for this disease looks like yet. Is immunity permanent, or does it only last a few months? What co-morbidities are popping up from people with previously had the disease? They have already identified an increased risk of strokes, potential brain, heart and kidney damage, lung scarring, inflammatory syndromes in children... and these are in asymptomatic people or those with mild cases, not just the hospitalized. We need more information before we open the floodgates and have a free for all. Otherwise there may be significant health issues related to COVID down the line.
4) Increased testing could help to isolate carriers and make it easier to maneuver through society safely.
In other words... slowing the transmission rate can save lives