Great read! I think about this subject every single day. Perhaps you can answer the question--what do we want?

Unchecking every box of madness does not leave us with what box to check for sanity. From the beginning I suspected, from the existing studies about masks from the Flu and the first Covid, that they wouldn't be significant. I'd say 1 out of 100 people knew the best way to deal with Covid-19 but they were marginalized. Why?

I believe the reason we can't agree on what to do about Covid lies in the fact that we don't know what we want to do in the first place.

Knowing where you don't want to go isn't the same as knowing where you DO want to go.

How much do we want to protect the old? How much the freedom of the young? How much is the risk of dying worth against the fun of going out partying? In the beginning many old people went out and said, "You young people go live your lives. If I'm scared I'll stay home. If not, I'll take my chances." And yet, we went into a mass hysteria like you pointed out.

There was, is, no one size fits all.

Everyone can agree getting sick sucks. No one can agree on one thing everyone wants to do, or see done. Name we one thing people want (that isn't a negative). Something concrete. Without that, I, we, can only surf the waves of madness.

Madness begins when you no longer believe it's possible to know what you want. When you can no longer believe in society's current Gods. When you can't find an internal beacon.