"But it then morphed into a refusal to take some precautions-- essentially a refusal to consider personal responsibility issue-- due to the politics involved instead of a reasoned & informed stance on the risks."

I'm well known for suddenly developing overt libertarian tendencies when governments order me to do something just for sake of bureaucratic niceties or for reasons that don't make logical sense and I can attest to the voracity my views after having gotten somewhat the worse for wear in demonstrations. However, the matter of others endangering my health, your health and that of many others is in another league altogether and there's no question that governments should act and do so decisively. I'd therefore put your comment in much stronger terms.

It is not just a matter of personal responsibility but when these idiotic buffoons (and that's being polite to them) act so damn stupidly and irresponsibly, then they actually endanger not only their own lives but also yours, mine and thousands of others too. What they do with their own lives ought not to be my concern but it certainly is in this instance, for the very reasons that their stupid and illogical actions will end up affecting the lives of others. Therefore they've absolutely no right [or rights] to do so for any reason whatsoever. In fact, if someone deliberately and knowingly went against best practice and without essential reason—and that it could be proven that some other person died as a consequence—then that ought to amount to either manslaughter or murder (as it would in other 'equivalent' circumstances).

If ever there were a case for governments to act with perfect reason and absolute authority, then this exigency is it. Moreover, the very tenet of government—its very raison d'être—demands that governments act omnipotently and with impunity, and without fear and hesitation in these matters.

Simply, governments should immediately kibosh any effective opposition to sound health regulations, which, by definition, would be the best advice available (such as the necessity to wear masks, etc.), then, if still necessary, round up what's left of the room-temperature-IQ opposition.

If you think my comments are intemperate or extreme and more akin to those of a tyrant then I need remind you that such measures have been commonplace in the not-too-distant past. For example, during WWII in the US, UK, Australia and many other countries, wartime regulations were such that the State could find one guilty of treason for crimes (breaches of regulations that were deemed important to national security). In fact, during WWII, many countries shot people for breaching national security even though the outcome of their actions would, if measured on a utile for utile basis, be less than the equivalent damage of spreading the pandemic.

The idiot brigade ought to consider itself damn lucky that governments seem to have forgotten wartime regulations and haven't yet equated deliberately spreading the pandemic with treason. Of course, in an earlier era with the much more virulent and dangerous plague pandemic, natural selection by now would have automatically saved governments much trouble. Let's not make light of the seriousness of the matter. The facts are that we're in the midst of a war with an invisible and highly dangerous enemy. I've just looked up the latest figures as of 11 July, and theses are they: Coronavirus cases: 187,276,192, deaths 4,042,981.