From the beginning, the medical opinion to close things down and work on a vaccine has always been presented as a pragmatic solution to prevent overwhelming hospitals and overworking medical personnel. The whole debate about people dying seems to have derailed the discussion about the real risk to society (a fundamental breakdown of our healthcare system). The vaccine is still necessary to prevent that from happening.
I just went back and read the orders from a year ago. They very clearly state 2 goals:
1. Prevent people from getting sick.
2. Have available capacity to treat sick people.
The second one is not just hospital rooms and ventilators. It is also trained medics and nurses. If they are all burned out, more people will die from "common" things like car accidents due to lack of care facilities.