I didn't think I was being sneery, SuperMeerkat, just explaining why it grates with me. I don't know your lived experience and you don't know mine; I expect they're quite different. I live in what seems to be a very superficial 'community' and whilst there are pockets of people who genuinely seem to be caring and considerate of others, when the chips are down, these are few indeed.
Anything social media-focused though is very much lauded. This sort of clapping would be right up many people's street but that's where the caring would begin and end and it's very much 'angels' and 'heroes' and gratuitous displays too.
If you want an example of 'not caring', here is one. Parking is tight here, if you don't get a space in the street it's a bit of a hike. We have quite a few medical staff here, retail workers too, bus drivers, you get the picture. When these people move their cars to go to work, others in the street who are not going to work, will take those spaces. It sounds very petty but it's not. I imagine that when those workers come back from whatever shift they've been on, their first hope is to get in and rest. I doubt they'd be impressed with clapping.
Anyway, that's just my view from my own circumstances and my reasoning resulting from that, I won't deride anybody else for theirs.