@EarlGreywithLemon
If you aren't willing to get on with things, that's fine, but you can't expect everyone to live in fear. You may not want to join in with parties etc but other people have made the decision for themselves, like the thinking people that they are, that they do.
First of all, as these things are currently illegal, it isn’t their decision to make. Are you going to apply the same principle to, say, theft?
Secondly, when they make that decision they are also making it for the people who are being careful. Because if there are lots of cases around the latter can be infected on their one supermarket trip of the week, or their one urgent GP appointment. Not to mention the bus drivers who are driving the infected around, the teachers who are teaching their kids, the supermarket workers who are serving them, and the doctors and nurses treating them.
So if we all lived in isolation then sure, it would be everyone’s right to go get Covid if they fancy taking your chances with it. But we don’t, and it’s also others’ not to be infected with it.
I genuinely do not understand is mindset, sorry.
Seeing friends is in no way comparable to theft and I find it utterly bizarre that you would make that comparison. If there is any comparison to be made I think speeding is a good one. While I think there are some drivers who always drive with utmost care - never get too close to another vehicle, never make a manoeuvre without total care and attention - the vast, vast majority of people will have broken the rules in some fashion at some point. Driving is a very dangerous activity - 1.25 million people are killed in car accidents across the world every year. Add to that the people who are injured, some of them seriously and you have millions and millions of people affected. There are some very dangerous drivers out there - people who majorly break the law - but most accidents are caused by people who aren't as careful as they should be - they're going too fast, they're too close to the car in front, they shift lanes without looking.
If it was suggested that we should all stop driving to save those millions of lives, and prevent those millions of injuries, I doubt that most people wouldn't accept that. And yet, if there were no vehicles on the roads, those 1.25 million lives would definitely be saved, for sure. But the argument (rightly in my opinion) would be that preventing driving because some people have accidents isn't a sensible reaction.
Another example - 11 million people a year die of sepsis, around the world. Sepsis is caused by infections, when the immune system overreacts and causes organ damage. So we could say, in order to prevent 11 million deaths, we should lock everyone down, prevent people from doing anything that could cause infection (eg stop them from using knives which could cause a cut, which gets infected) and never let anyone get an infection ever again. 11 million lives saved. An enormous number. The price of it is that no one ever gets to do anything, ever.
Again, I think most people would argue that even though 11 million lives would be saved, it's not a sensible reaction to the problem. And I would agree.
Seeing friends isn't like theft. Seeing friends is like accepting that driving is dangerous and doing it anyway because wrapping yourself in bubble wrap at some point just suffocates you to death.