That valuation framework has also existed historically in terms of the periodic low-key freakouts about bird flu, swine flu, etc. Also the periodic filling of hospitals during flu season (though, it has been stated here and elsewhere that hospitals filling up is frequently just a feature of how the healthcare system is run).
I think there would be a lot more useful debate if 1) people admitted that there is nothing truly unique in kind about the current situation (just degree) and 2) the "return to normal number," however that number is defined, is a real thing. The folks more concerned about the virus could advocate for more stringent constraints on reopening and vice versa. But people would at least be using a common framework that's grounded in the reality that people are willing to live with a certain amount of risk without doing much about it.
The arbitrary exceptions are pretty nice. In an industry I am aware of, people absolutely have to be onsite and also need to eat lunch. When lunch is being eaten in the cafeteria, you got a bunch of maskless people in the same room spread out at least six feet. It's been long established that the virus, particularly the omicron variant, easily spreads at distance.
But those six feet, when blessed by corporate, make all the difference.
ETA
I do take the virus seriously, am vaxxed, and actually do a good job of social distancing, unlike many of my peers who preach the seriousness of the disease and yet engage in behaviors that are high risk in terms of transmission. Level of concern about the virus and belief in public health authority narrative are orthogonal dimensions.
This is the main issue I have had with the response to the pandemic. Covid is not the first time in modern history we have had a contagious virus that kills people regularly (see: flu). So pre-Covid, everyone was gambling that their non-social distancing behaviors would kill someone through spreading a contagious disease. The risk was very small but clearly non-zero, and members of the public clearly decided en masse that going about their normal lives was more valuable than that increased risk of killing someone with the flu.
Now comes covid and people who happily accepted the risk of flu exposure/spread pretend that value judgement has never been made before and it is gauche to even talk about it. At some point it is a reasonable possibility that the threat of covid in terms of death and disease will be equal to or less than the threat of flu. It's difficult to predict exactly what that number is but it is at least theoretically quantifiable number. What's the point of maintaining restrictions at that point when the known value system of the public accepts that level of risk?
That number should be talked about, and people should stop pretending that weighting convenience and other factors against numbers of deaths is a sociopathic thing to do. Everyone has been doing it long before covid.
That valuation framework has also existed historically in terms of the periodic low-key freakouts about bird flu, swine flu, etc. Also the periodic filling of hospitals during flu season (though, it has been stated here and elsewhere that hospitals filling up is frequently just a feature of how the healthcare system is run).
I think there would be a lot more useful debate if 1) people admitted that there is nothing truly unique in kind about the current situation (just degree) and 2) the "return to normal number," however that number is defined, is a real thing. The folks more concerned about the virus could advocate for more stringent constraints on reopening and vice versa. But people would at least be using a common framework that's grounded in the reality that people are willing to live with a certain amount of risk without doing much about it.