Part of the messiness of this debate is that the actual severe NPIs enjoyed broad support when they happened. The real resistance was generated during the Delta/Omicron period when people were vaccinated but there was still a lot of sickness and death and there were fights over closures, masking 1/2
This has all kind of blurred together in people's heads to be retroactive opposition to school closings and other 2020 interventions, but it's just not true that those were unpopular when they happened. 2/2
When the Omicron news dropped over Thanksgiving, I was like "Are you fucking KIDDING me" Extremely dispiriting to have our happy sci-fi Hollywood thriller ending devoured by the maw of evolution.