The R is reduced while any effective measures are active. The playable sim for Scenario 1 has them active while there's blue shading over the graph, deactivating them once herd immunity is reached in that sim. In that case, compared to scenario 0 (do nothing), fewer people have been exposed so fewer people die. So it is not true to say, as you did, that "Youre are going to have the same number of deaths sooner or later as long as the hospitals aren't overwhelmed."

> There's no avoiding society returning to normal as people need jobs to pay rent and buy food.

You've moved the goalposts, but even so, the later sims suggest other things that can be done with less invasive measures like test and trace, wearing masks and social distancing. These don't prevent people doing jobs. They do decrease the number of people who die.