> Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions?

Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated.

The problem with all of these simple "risk profile" analyses is that we as a country are being forced to accept risk we don't have to. With cars, we understand there is some amount of risk but also we as a society also care about those deaths and make tons of regulations and improvements to make driving safer. As such, death rates have fallen over the decades even as miles driven have accelerated.

Whereas with the pandemic we seemingly are just accepting high death rates and hoping for the best instead of putting in the level of effort to fix it. That makes it not just about risk tolerance, but frustration with the level of concern the country is putting into fixing the problem.