At some point, it seems like you have to weigh the lifetime risk of dying from COVID against the loss of life enjoyment and decide “We shouldn’t subject ourselves to another 1.25% of our lifetime of this (whatever “this” is) to lower the fatality rate from Y to X.” (If you’re lowering from 5% to 1%, that trade makes sense for even severe social restrictions. If you’re lowering it from 0.5% to 0.4%, that trade makes no sense for anything beyond the very mildest of restrictions.)

I think it's better to consider some kind of "casualty rate" that includes long COVID, rather than just the "fatality rate". At the moment it's possible some people may never fully recover full function after contracting COVID even though they survive.

The people who never fully recover are orders of magnitude more expensive than the dead. The latter are a one-time cost in lost productivity and care expenses; the former are an on-going cost. Since we, collectively, are the ones who are going to pay via taxation, we should IMO be a hell of a lot more concerned about COVID’s long-term consequences.

While I don't think you're wrong, in practice I think most people use fatality rates as a proxy that kinda implicitly includes non-fatal harms. How often do people talk about heart disease or obesity in terms of "casualty rates"?

Beyond personal choice, in America statewise regulations and urban v. rural differences in mitigation techniques may mean citizens vote with their feet and gov'ts respond to properly shore up tax bases.

In any case I'm no longer thinking this has a clear end date, just a gradual fade into memory, the exact length of time it takes undefined/unclear.

People (Or at least governments), seem unwilling to take that kind of stance.