It seems like this is partially because (in the US at least) covid is a largely political thing, as stupid as that is.

Once we are 50 years in the future I think both of these will be regarded as stupid/backward.

On a fragment of a stele recovered from Atlantis, this was inscribed and translated:

“Daddy, why do we live under water if we breathe air?”

“Darling, it’s just because of natural variability.”

Even if coronavirus actually exists I would still consider COVID-19 epidemic to be mostly a social experiment, basically the extended version of War of the Worlds [1]

Governments are testing how many idiotic rules can they make us follow, preparing for the switch from democracy to surveillance-based totalitarism.

The actual mortality rates are not enough to justify all those limitations - most people infected by coronavirus don't even have any symptoms, majority of those who have symptoms will get through them as they would through a normal flu. If anything, we should order the old people (say 70+) to stay home, as they seem to be the only real risk group.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio_d...