Ask HN: How to improve at using base rates?

I was reflecting on the panic around India's second wave, when it appeared to be going exponential. Base rates suggested that it would level off and decline similarly to the pattern seen around the world. It does look like that's what ended up happening.

At the time, though, feeling the emotional impact of the tragedy made it quite difficult to apply base rates.

- How have you personally improved at leaning on things like base rates?

- Why don't more experts default to using base rates as the standard predictive model?

- Is there a reason it's not standard practice for experts to use base rates when making predictions?

[EDIT: reformatted to clarify the questions]