Death's will not skyrocket as long as we keep an eye on the infection-rates and do social-distancing and good hygiene. (flatten the curve)
It will probably cause a lot more people to die, but even loosing 1% of the population (and that would be horrific) would not be too bad with the economy..
If we turn to the dark side and have a look at who's the most in risk it falls to the older generations such as 60+ and the majority of those are retired. Second would be 40+ that are in the risk-zone to get it a bit serious, but not as deadly, that will probably suffer some damage (lung-scarring and other organ damage) but they will survive but require more healthcare in the future..
So not too much damage to the economy, but the human loss will be felt for quite some time.
If we do not open up, to some appropriate level, we will break the economy and we will not have any food on our tables. What will you do when all supermarkets in your city has been looted and you run out of food?
All supply-lines are so interconnected today so if they break too much everything just stop working.. Farmers not being able to transport food to cities since no spare parts for the trucks are available.. Spare parts for the trucks cannot be produced since there is no electricity at the machine-shop.. The power-plant cannot produce power because there are no people there to run it since they are all out looking for food... (extremely simplified flow..)..
Now think about what is needed to produce that computer that powers your phone or car or everything needed to keep the power-grid running.