What are you on about? There was literally a pandemic on (and still kind of is).
Do you really think people can just go about their ordinary lives, with no thought for other people?
Lockdowns were a shocking totalitarian action I never thought I would live to see in my own country. But of course many can only see/say that when looking at China, even though what is happening there is just a more extreme mirror of our own crimes against humanity.
The public can't be trusted to do the right thing. Many people aren't getting additional doses of the vaccine so their immunity has weakened. Why are we not in lockdown right now? It's literally costing lives as we speak.
For the record, I am not against the idea that the government would provide some financial support for people so they could have stayed at home etc. But the forced closure of the whole society including and especially the banning of seeing other people was unbelievably totalitarian and indefensible.