How would one know? I avoided basically all optional gatherings of more than zero people from mid-March 2020 to late April 2021. I didn’t explain that to anyone; I just didn’t do it.

Well, my experiences match the OP's and it was definitely not very related to pandemic considering that people was not even trying to use Zoom or chat. And this includes people who had no job at the time so "I spend already 8 hours a day on video so please give me a break" were not a majority.

Indeed, that is what I did, and that is what I expected of others. No one really asked why, the answer was obvious, and when I asked them, they said they were quarantining in the same way.

I find it hard to empathize with the idea that you had good friends and wouldn’t even send them an occasional “wish we could hang out; miss you” type message. I can understand why someone might think their true friends were revealed.