Unpopular Opinion

I would disagree the shutdowns were ridiculous. Governments around the world had limited tools for managing a new situation and made some mistakes, but a lockdown is actually a really good tool for managing one thing, overloaded healthcare systems. If your healthcare system is overloaded the death rate goes up, way up. If you can flatten the curve, slow the rate at which people get sick, the hospital is not overloaded and the death rate does not spike as badly.

Masks were a good option and did work but it wasn't clear that was the case at the start. What medications worked was not clear at the start. What treatment processes were most effective was not clear at the start.

A few years in and things are very different. We know masks work, we know social distancing works, we know the vaccines work, and we know a couple of medications work to a degree. The population is also not as vulnerable given the number who have been sick already and have existing immunity or have immunity from a vaccine.

So now we have to make choices. We now know masks work so we have to decide when to use them. Sick people should wear masks when they go outside just like people in Japan do. People who may have been exposed should also wear masks out of consideration for those around. People shouldn't be fined for not wearing a mask, but they should face social pressure and feel bad for not caring about other people.

Governments should have a clear plan now for how to handle the next inevitable pandemic with lessons learned from this one. They should use border controls much more strictly, pay the cost for quarantine protocols for entrants to the country, fund testing and vaccine development, and have supplies of essential PPE on hand for the next event. Culturally as need to have a stronger sense of responsibility for protecting other people through inconveniencing ourselves a little by wear a mask and wash our hands.