Calling precautions superfluous after the uncertainty is gone is not clever.
It was known early that covid was rarely spread outdoors, but it took a long time for rules and recommendations to catch up to that, especially in Australia IIRC.
If it had been airborne Ebola with the infectiousness of Measles it wouldn’t have been mass insanity at all.
Ever since COVID, I have been wearing masks, mostly when using public transport. Instead of five days a week, I now use public transport a lot less, a maximum of two days. Two advantages from this combination that I see are that I have not caught seasonal flu, as I used to every year pre-COVID, and extra conscious handwashing also probably helps. Additionally, I appreciate the fact that my whole face is not visible unless I want it to be, which helps me with social anxiety, and people tend to ignore me more.
Before we had vaccines, covid was killing more people than heart attacks and car accidents. Combined.
Deriding people for caring about their own safety is callous and puerile.
Evem worse, masks work better for others than yourself. What came a bit as shock during COVId for me, was how little people cared for each other, that people couldn't even bothered with the smallest inconveniences to do something good for everyone. I am a cynic, but didn't that level egoism.
Indeed. However, I believe that we, as humans, have always been indifferent to those outside our immediate circle. Similarly, people often don't show concern for the homeless or those in inescapable servitude due to mortgages. Yet, there is a desire to increase the number of people in office, rather than converting more spaces into houses or apartments. I have observed on Hacker News that some individuals don't even rent places; instead, they keep those spaces closed to inflate prices. Despite the significant progress we've made from tribal times, our emotional evolution seems limited.