I actually had to look this up in order to make sure I had the dates right, but it's absolutely correct.
It is also illegal to meet a single person in your garden or outside unless you're exercising. I don't have exact timings on that, because in order to protect my mental health I've stopped following the news.
"A tad excessive" is understating it a bit. It's inhuman. Writing it down makes me feel ill. When people talk about it as if it's normal and okay, I get an intense feeling of anger and a desire to cause them pain.
So if you want your perspective on why people are acting like "covidiots" or whatever offensive name we're applying to our brothers now - this is why.
I am done with bureaucratic despots telling me what to do, I am not a guinea pig to be experimented on.
I've felt like you for a long time, after monitoring the actual statistics instead of the news.
> But it's not viable at a population level because a significant percentage of people are either in situations whereby they need to mix households in order to function, or have brain chemistry which means that avoiding social mixing for prolonged periods (months or more) causes them to become depressed, anxious, or in extreme cases psychotic.
That's absolutely true. The long-term effects of social restrictions on public health and general morale was something somewhat unexpected, or at least not thought much about early in 2020 (and, hindsight being 20/20, only confirms that the big mistake was not doing hard but short lockdowns early on). I'm just hoping we can vaccinate our way out of this in the coming months, because even introverts are having troubles taking this much longer. Myself, I started this pandemic in a state of being burned out by interacting with other people - a year later, I now desperately crave some socialization, but I'm not sure if I'm even capable of it anymore.