If we want to empirically evaluate the perceived threat-level to the vast majority of the healthy population from COVID-19, we need look no further than the most senior members of the British government, who clearly did not perceive the virus as a serious threat as early as May 2020 (seven weeks into the first UK lockdown), when they hosted 'bring a bottle' parties (um... 'business meetings') at 10 Downing Street while Joe Average was prohibited by law from socialising with his friends and family, on pain of fines and criminal prosecution. Of course, anyone observant knew this at the time (even though revelations about said gatherings were only leaked in recent months); you need only watch Nancy Pelosi getting her hair done, government officials removing their masks as soon as they believed the cameras were off, the UK health secretary removing his mask as soon as he walked into 10 Downing Street, US Governors having illicit social gatherings, etc, way back at the height of the crisis.
While all this was going on, the Queen of England sat alone at her husband's funeral, and a man sat crying in the car park while his wife died in hospital.
Whether these well-timed 'leaks' are deliberate and designed to help change the narrative (the press now pivoting against lock-downs, suggesting T-cell immunity from the common cold might protect against COVID, downplaying the seriousness of Omicron, etc) I do not know, but many observers seem locked in a state of hypnosis, still complaining that the people who 'broke the rules' should be punished for breaking the rules. Apologists maintain that 'it was a mistake', and 'we're deeply sorry', but many people are completely missing the point. If the people who were the architects of the pandemic response clearly and consistently ignored the restrictions they placed on the rest of the population, this should tell us one thing and one thing only: that they did not perceive the virus as a serious threat to themselves or their families.
Of course, it will take months or years for this to 'sink in' with many people the function of whose daily existence for the past twenty-two months has been to advertise the existential threat to healthy adults and children (remembering that 75 per cent of those dying from or with COVID had four co-morbidities), shout 'govern me harder, daddy!', wear ten masks, and eagerly take any injection offered them on condition that they are allowed to work or go on holiday. And I can hardly blame them at all, because they were terrorised by state-manipulated media to the point at which they will have to completely realign their worldview in order to comprehend what actually happened. And many people were simply obliged to go with the flow for the sake of their livelihood.
And yes: trying to vaccinate your way out of a pandemic was regarded as a dumb idea until about a year ago, when... um... 'the science changed'.
Good thread, anyway.