I think this is summarizing what a lot of people with a working brain probably already are thinking privately.

In general, I think there are too many arm chair scientists with opinions right now and this is not helping. Part of the reason is that we're all sitting at home mildly bored and frustrated with the sudden restrictions on our life.

My general attitude is that I understand people are afraid and considering I don't like scaring people, I'm open to adapting to their needs right now and am trying to be mindful. So, doing the right thing for me is not blaming people for being irrational and trying to adapt to their emotional needs.

However, I am very worried about the self inflicted economic pain and misery and how that is going to affect me personally as well as people I care about. E.g. my parents are retired and already had their pension devalued a few times in the last decade. Stuff like this is likely to cause more cuts. They are well off regardless but there are many pensioners who get to ride out their remaining years/decades with a significant cut in income and no chance to fix that. Stuff like this happens when we trigger a global recession/depression out of fear.

Another thing that I observe happening is that lockdown policies and the resulting bureaucracy, constantly changing rules, etc. are by and large coming from people who are interpreting what they are hearing from others. A few weeks ago when everything was extremely scary this was understandable. But we're past that now.

Most of what they hear is either without much scientific basis/merit, severely watered down/dumbed down pseudo scientific babble, or worse flat out wrong information.

Also these decision makers have agendas that go beyond trying to do the right thing. E.g. a lot of politicians have enormous egos and are under a lot of pressure to be seen doing something. Add populism to the mix or overzealous anti vaxers, and you have a perfect storm of mass hysteria and a lot of completely pointless policy. Add lawyers to the mix, and you get a lot of ass coverage on top. Bureaucrats when faced with demands raining down from the top, oblige by coming up with lots of rules and demands for more budget. Politicians oblige, and you get more of the same.

So, a scientist might say something like
"Sure, whatever, go wear a non medical mask if it makes you feel good. It might even help though I'm not aware of any studies to that effect. But go knock yourself out. "

In the hands of bureaucrats that turns into the police issueing crippling fines for small businesses tolerating customers without masks in their shops. This is actually happening in Germany. In France people have to print a form stating their intentions when leaving their house and the police is very busy enforcing that. In Sweden, restaurants are open as normal and the government seems to have shown some restraint with imposing measures. France got hit really hard early on but is now improving. Germany and Sweden are largely fine already. Germany has enjoyed a widely published low death rate despite being quite late with locking down. The point is, they are doing widely different things (including doing nothing) with more or less similar outcomes. It's fine. The world is not ending.

IMHO we are well prepared in case this virus comes back. We'll detect it earlier, act more decisively and hopelessly less stupidly. So, lift the restrictions and allow people to self restrain and decisively act locally based on testing/incidents/common sense.