These were completely valid short-term responses to a situation where an effectively quarantined country had a small outbreak in Venice Beach and we didn't know a lot about spread.

But we were not that country. If the front door is wide open and there's a large sign above it saying "Free stuff - take what you want" because your spouse wants to embrace minimalism and throw away all your joint belongings, then triple deadbolting the back door and installing security cameras are not effective measures to protect your belongings.

There are other policy areas where states can experiment with "Red state" vs "Blue state" policies and compare how they perform, but pandemic spread is not one of them. The most permissive line of defense is the decision that has been made for everyone, and all it takes is one person (we used to call these 'bioterrorists', now we call them 'Presidents') to decide to "get this over with before the election", and it renders any other sensible precautions moot.

Areas where very aggressive precautions were implemented to counterbalance reckless policies elsewhere... didn't do that. You can't do that, without a very strong quarantine around the different policy regions.

This does not offer any commentary on the idea of sensible precautions, in a vacuum. The politicization of COVID that happened very rapidly didn't need to occur, and it did not occur in most other pandemics in this country, or in many other countries during COVID.

You should read about the politicization of the 1918 flu: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7893336/

You picked two odd examples. A beach is debatable as being capable of being opened and closed, and whether or not a person is tresspassing, but parks are generally managed by the state or country. Of course they can close down. They typically close from subset to sunrise.

The idea of a beach closing at night-time was novel to me, when I first came to the US. In the UK beaches are ... just beaches, their status is that of "beach", and access is not controlled at all.

Generally there's a fine for being caught sleeping on the beach I think, but that's really to discourage people being swept away.

With a few exceptions for snooty uptight municipalities who've written rules far beyond the norm you're generally allowed on the beach 24/7 on the east cost and access is likewise uncontrolled (except New Jersey). I can't speak to the west coast.

I picked two examples of everyday activities that should have been obvious to everyone that they were safe.

Mere weeks later public health authorities encouraged this sort of behavior (going to the beach or the park with ample space between individuals). It seemed a relevant example of "pointless and counterproductive policies around lockdowns"