You make a lot of good points. I don’t think it’s necessarily just an American thing - I think for a lot of people (notably, regardless of political affiliation), there’s reverse reasoning occurring: people want so badly to go back to normal life that they make decisions about what is safe based on what they want to do. I think on the right you see this as reflected as “the virus is overblown, I don’t need to get vaccinated or wear a mask.” On the left you see overconfidence in things like masks in school because there’s such a strong desire to see kids back in school. The hard reality is there is still a need to socially distance and reduce the size of our networks to reduce transmission and avoid all the things you’ve described. It’s an inconvenient truth, but being sad about that fact doesn’t change reality. As you’ve said there is really no acknowledgement that long Covid is a risk and what that means for an individual’s life. Having a husband who was sick for 10 years with a post viral illness gives me a different perspective on the preciousness of health, and whether or not a year or two of life adjustments is worth preserving that.