Me too.
When the bat story hit, it almost immediately set off the BS alarm.
When the masks became required everywhere, I played along only where necessary and ensuring I provide maximum back pressure (without becoming a jerk).
As to the mask: I think maybe 20% believed the crap wholeheartedly. Most 70% went along with it and were sort of indifferent or not really standing completely on one side or the other, and 10% rebelled. How can a mask with giant holes stop a tiny virus? Common sense. Most people wore the same mask all day and these masks lose their effectiveness once damp. Also, some folks reused these masks, even over many days and that was sort of gross (Petri dish). I can honestly say close to NO ONE really wore a mask 24/7 and it was simply a selective show where we all impress someone by wearing a mask in one place but not in another. This virus was still commutable by contact/touch and lives for many hours or even days on a surface depending on what it is and the temperature.
I truly realized just how stupid all this was when they began closing all the beaches. When being called reckless and irresponsible because I went to Destin during the scare, I simply asked folks: Is it the high temperatures, salt water, sand which is a horrible surface for the virus, fresh air, direct sun light (UV kills the virus) or fact that people usually spread out on a beach which I need to worry about? That would shut them up, but I am sure they still thought me as some bad person for not following the herd and jumping off the cliff because everyone else is.
It became obvious they (the decision makers in government) were doing idiotic stuff just to show “action in crisis.”
They were giving people hope and a feeling of control by giving them stupid masks.
When the vaccines were mandated I risked my job and refused. They ultimately did not fire me, even though the threatened me with such. They simply bureaucratically made my life difficult by requiring two monitored PCR tests per week, grossly violating my privacy, and costing me my personal time and money.
Ironically, never did I social distance (I went to parties, had family get together etc), I only used the mask when required, never got vaccinated and NEVER got sick. Meanwhile, one of my paranoid coworkers had it three times, another twice (and this lady used crime scene tape to block the access to her office), my boss had it twice... I believe I probably did get exposed many times and possibly even contracted it, I simply fought it off and built a natural immunity to it without even realizing I had it.
This was an awful time not because of Covid, but because of the idiot policy makers we have, think Cuomo as an example. The disease (if that contagious) is going to run its course and it won’t stop until herd immunity is reached. The measures you would have to put in place to actually stop it, would have worse consequences than the disease! Even the Chinese with their draconian efforts did not really make a difference in the long term albeit our MSM sure did make it sound like they are a role model to follow.
It was a crazy time.
Around 2020 I went back and re-read Defoe’s Journal of the Plague…his almost eyewitness account of the black death (he was 5 when it occurred). I was about 1/2 the way through the book reading about human piles of bodies, up to 1/2 of entire provinces dying. I realized we didn’t have anything like that.
I posted over the next few days on FB and got almost zero agreements even from my family, most didn’t say anything.
I thought the same as well. The only justification I can see for closing beaches was public health tyrants thought people would get in car accidents on the way to the beach and take up hospital beds..