The issue for you is that if the outcomes of a couple states like California and Florida are even in the same neighborhood for comparison in spite of supposedly vastly different policies - it means that your catastrophizing and support for violations of enshrined civil liberties are not justified.
It means that you have a flawed grasp of whats going on.
If Texas drops the "crucial" regulations on public life and numbers trend downwards, there's something wrong in your analysis.
You'd say the same thing regardless of outcome, which is why I'm saying there's an asymmetry where the other side will never admit their hubris or even possibility of fallibility.
There's a certain commitment to doom, as though they can't imagine a world where things just fizzle out - as we'd expect due to seasonality and rising immunity - and society moves on.
I will be very frustrated if I spent the last year social distancing, masking, and avoiding socialization with friends and family only to have bars, concerts, and socialization spring up everywhere else before I can get vaccinated. Sure, I'm young and healthy, but I don't want to risk potential long-term effects or spreading covid around to folks I socialize with. Can we please just wait for everyone to have vaccine access before we start easing regulations!?!
Newsflash, it never stopped. In WI, many places here are just completely ignoring this ever happened. A lot of businesses openly challenge the law and i think like over half the sheriff's here signed a petition saying they wouldn't enforce the governor's mask mandate.
I am really baffled. Ok, opening or not opening businesses is a big topic with a lot of economic ramifications.
But Masks? Why can't people extend this simple courtesy to the rest of the population? People follow traffic rules so as not to kill others or themselves. Wearing a mask is at best an inconvenience. I don't understand this at all.
It's an act of protest against what they perceive as "the liberal nanny state". Every mask deliberately unworn is a raised middle finger, a statement of "I refuse to do anything you ask me to do".
It really is childish and contrarian, but that is what politics have become, a black/white view of all issues, with a sports team-level fanaticism to always follow "my team", while demonizing "your team".
And one party in particular has been fanning the flames like crazy.
