Masks are cheap and simple with no drawbacks. Ventilation is easy in many cases. Keeping one's distance costs nothing (which is not the be-all of social distancing, I agree). Vaccines are free.

These are all ethical, very effective and cost the individual almost nothing.

Enforcing social distancing is complex and incurs costs. For outdoor venues it seems to be less effective. What other methods are causing far more harm than good, far more harm than doing nothing?

> Keeping one's distance costs nothing (which is not the be-all of social distancing, I agree).

Actually this costs trillions of dollars.[0]

[0] https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-2nd-qua...

> None of these thing were in any playbook prior to march of 2020.

Which things do you think are wild new tactics for trying to contain a pandemic? Social distancing? Lockdowns? Wearing masks in public? Because if you think any of those are untested wacky "nobody's ever tried anything like this before!" approaches, you need to spend a few more minutes with your favorite search engine.

You've been severely misinformed. You can read for example the UK's pre-pandemic playbook at (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...) - note they specifically call out universal masking, border closures, and restrictions on public gatherings as bad policies they don't plan to implement because there's no good evidence they help. Maybe they were wrong (I definitely think they were wrong on masks!), or maybe the difference between true influenza and a coronavirus with similar symptoms matters, but it's just not accurate to present these kinds of policies as the pre-pandemic consensus.