Correct. This is a rational stance, even if you disagree.
Over the decades, I've observed that US society starts to break down when there is a danger of an unknown origin or bounds. People become irrational and panic, resulting in all sorts of defensive behavior in the face of uncertainty (some of these rituals are helpful, some not). This is true at both the macro and micro level; eg fear of getting sued, fear of computers, fear of selling collectibles.
US society has an expectation of informed consent. Crossing the street has inherent dangers. Juggling chainsaws has inherent dangers. Skydiving has inherent dangers. If US society has been largely convinced that there is codified information that both sets relative-risk and laws regarding liability exist, activities are considered "normal life" with whatever inherent dangers are "known".
I would call this known state, a narrative, but it's more like the meta-narrative across all areas. There are constant changes to these qualities, over time and space, so this affects it; eg It used to be illegal for a vehicle to turn right on red in some areas of the US, without prohibitive signage. Is that still true? The meta-narrative says that laws between states are kooky and you might want to look it up. Spoiler: it's legal in all 50 states since 1980ish. edit: not in NYC, among other cities as tootie has pointed out.
For now the meta-narrative around COVID has stabilized to: We know it's a virus. We know it's communicable by air. We know the risk groups (or can look it up). We know the defensive protocols. et al.
> Personally I think the Omicron wave is still extremely serious and we need to wait a few more months.
This doesn't require a retooling of society, reaffirmation of doubting the science, or theorizing about potential worst case scenarios. A large portion of the US public is done with the handwringing and fearmongering. You can wait as long as you want. It won't change anything about the world you adopt as the new normal. Life is more dangerous than it was a few years decade ago because there's a new vector. There is no end, much like if you get cancer or lose a limb. Life is just harder now, for everyone for the foreseeable future.
When it comes to crossing the street, we accept an unreasonably high degree of risk even though we invest billions of dollars in enforcing extremely complex and rigid safety protocols that suck the life out of me on a daily basis yet they are "normal". And no one says the stop signs and seatbelts exist due to hand wringing and fear mongering. I'm still sitting her waiting for the bane of traffic mortality (and smog) to end, but I'm going to look both ways crossing the street until it does. People 100 years probably protested their heads off to keep cars off the road and it didn't work. The much milder Omicron variant is killing way more people than traffic. You'd be better off wearing a mask and jay walking than vice versa.
I certainly could have lived without the hand wringing and fear mongering over terrorism.
And incidentally, right on red is actually still illegal NYC.
Prior to 2020 the consensus was that these pandemics can be prolonged by measures that spread out the cases. Now we see that this is true.
> Disasters don't end when you get bored with them.
True, and they don't end after arbitrarily chosen time frames ("Gosh, I can only live with this for 2 years max!") and they don't align with political milestones and dates. This could be the early years of a 20-year-long pandemic. It could disappear in a few months. I don't know. You don't know. Nobody knows at this point, and you can't give the disease an arbitrary deadline.
I read these threads and it's surreal--like people sitting outside of their burning house and saying "OK, my house has been burning for 2 hours. That's long enough for me, I'm moving back in! Time to get back to normal!"