Broad strokes...
In the grand scheme of things COVID-19 is a joke compared to real plagues. While the punch line isn't funny, the Black Death was what a real unchecked plague actually looks like. All of us should thank our lucky stars that COVID-19 is such a non-event for 99.9%+ of everyone who contracts it.
Wearing a $1 mask has to be about the simplest and easiest thing to do in the world. When I was in the Navy, we used to jog around the base and wrestle each other in the berthing compartment wearing our gas masks and MOPP suits for entertainment. Apart from getting so drunk that you can't walk, that's what passes for entertainment in the Navy! Some of the arguments I've heard have all the sincerity of kids asserting that they can't go to school because it's snowing outside. It's not a major imposition. It's just not. If wearing a two pound chunk of iron on your hip while you're taking a dump is not an issue, then neither is wearing a mask.
Apart from utterly destroying the global economy, the lockdowns were a case of too little, far too late. There was one chance for that to work, at the beginning of the pandemic, while everyone was still milling about. Collectively, all of humanity blew that chance. What followed was Exhibit A regarding how spectacularly incapable the medical apparatus in every country is, when it comes to handling a major pandemic. Wearing masks, washing hands, and population density make a real difference. The rest is theatrics intended to quell the fears of the drama queens of society, much like TSA checkpoints.
The government is probably not out to get any of us. Evidence? If they truly wanted to get "you", specifically, then they will, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. When last I checked, none of us have stealth combat drones with hypersonic missiles so accurate they can hit a moving person in the head, along with satellites that can read the book you're reading from space, and at least a trillion dollars worth of computing power. It's more like they just don't give a damn about what happens to us, one way or the other, so long as they get to play their games and check off whatever is at the top of their agenda list. For some reason, no matter who gets elected, it's always the most arrogant and self-righteous SOB on Mother Earth. That's not a discredit to the politicians, though, it's a discredit to the general public.
Vaccinations are the only reason tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of additional lives haven't been lost to disease. Most of us, myself included, would not be here today if not for modern medicine. If our medical scientists are truly trying to hurt people, then they have a wildly-beyond-belief excess of the requisite intelligence, education, training, materiel, and access to kill everyone on the planet without the lot of you here ever knowing about it.
It's fundamentally impossible to remove all risk from human endeavors, and it's foolish to even try to accomplish such a thing. Why it is that some people think they can live in a bubble where nothing and no one could ever hurt them is beyond my understanding. To my way of thinking about this, while I'm alive I want to enjoy life. Sometimes that involves taking some risks every now and then. What's "the worst that could happen"? Well, it isn't dying. That's for damn sure- because there's no escaping that fate. No, the "worst that could happen" would be arriving at the end of your life without maximizing your enjoyment of every day you were given. That really would be regrettable.
