I can understand why people feel this way, and in the UK this is also somewhat prevalent. In part, it stems from the poor messaging on COVID risks (at the indiv

I can understand why people feel this way, and in the UK this is also somewhat prevalent. In part, it stems from the poor messaging on COVID risks (at the individual and population level) and control measures we have available. In short, the UK media are somewhat pushing "COVID is over" at the same time as "the only tool is lockdown, and we can't do that again". These two factors, I suspect, mean that people are encouraged by the vaccination-heavy strategy we're pursuing. Children are one group for whom this strategy may be problematic, and is a more significant issue in the UK than US right now given that only 12+ are eligible. This review discusses some of the arguments around this topic: https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/11/01/archdischild-2021-323040 https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/11/01/archdischild-20... We also have CEV and elderly groups for whom the vaccine still leaves a reasonable degree of risk. Here's an opinion piece that cites research into CEV & vaccine protection: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/30/vaccinated-yet-still-clinically-extremely-vulnerable/ https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/30/vaccinated-yet-still-cl... In addition to the health risk/benefit to the individual, there is also the societal cost to lost productivity. This is where keeping low COVID prevalence may be worth pursuing on a solely economic basis through low-invasiveness NPIs. Of course, there's also the risk of escape variants, and that's just simple maths. As vaccine-only strategies do not keep R(eff) < 1, there is reasonable potential for escape variants like Omicron to surface. Though I am not an expert, I am personally sceptical of arguments that suggest the evolution pathways of a virus are constrained to low virulence. In general, I think the UK is talking about living with COVID, but really means "ignoring COVID". There is room for making accommodations to our lives that keeps COVID incidence lower than present, and these are for the most part quite easy to do. Unfortunately, our vaccine-only policy & poor mask messaging has really damaged the public's appreciation for a multi-faceted public-health approach. The UK is currently enjoying far fewer restrictions than in the early waves, and life is for the most part "back to normal". However, high incidence rates after Christmas are leading to people adjusting behaviour despite few restrictions. Anecdotally, I would not visit the pubs that I went to in October/November because COVID incidence is ~7%. It feels to me as though western countries have forgotten that the rest of the world is in the throes of the pandemic, and ignoring this fact isn't going to help us in the long run. Despite the fact that we're all tired of this pandemic, keeping on top of things doesn't have to be draconian, and will be in our best interests whilst the majority of the world are unvaccinated.