When dealing with the unknown at "global pandemic" scale, it seems better to be safe than sorry, given that you're potentially juggling millions of lives.
All other things being equal, it is better to be safe than sorry.
But that's not the choice offered.
One thing that you never needed the benefit of hindsight to understand is that there's a non-trivial risk to the vaccines as well. This always exists. For instance, it took science years to understand the full impact of Thalidomide.
In the small chance that these injections end up having substantial long-term problems with something like cancer or fertility, a universally applied treatment could be the destruction of humanity.
Trying to compel universal injections was always a foolish risk-management decision.
(And, I'd argue, more freedom than the average American citizen in many areas, most notably healthcare.)
One of the biggest regrets is letting my US GC "win" to lapse a few years ago. Oh well, it all went down the toilet over there just the same, isn't it?
This is like whining that the pub requires shirt and shoes but more bizarre.
It has nothing to do with 'democracy'; in QLD at least GPs have no requirement for mask wearing so it's just up to the good old "free market" where businesses can set their own rules. Complaining that a GP requires basic healthcare precautions is truly bizarre to me.
I don't think 'cloth masks' should be used at all; I think people should probably be required to wear respirators in certain healthcare circumstances - particularly at GPs - as long as there are virulent airborne illnesses around.
And there are all the time, to the point where respiratory disease is a top five killer.
I think if we review indoor air quality guidelines & get better at indoor air filtration we can probably relax that requirement. But sitting in a closed indoor space with a bunch of sick people not wearing even the most basic protective equipment is not my idea of a good time. (FWIW my GP requires people who have cold/flu symptoms sit outside in a separate area and then they have to come in via a back entrance. So there's some segregation of symptomatic people, but not a huge amount.)
I mean, not really? Some things in life are more important than assiduously avoiding death by a respiratory infection.