I don’t claim to have the perfect recipe. I started a thread a while back trying to understand what the torah says about sacrificing/risking a few lives for the well-being of a greater quantity of people, but it came up empty. I don’t think there is any way to put a finger in the exact amount of lives that are worth x amount of disruption, but I think the Torah sets the bar of sacrificing a life much higher than prevailing Western sentiment, which would mean we should be more careful than the strictest countries, not less.
The only thing I believe firmly is that there is no excuse to avoid protective measures that don’t come at a significant expense like masks and smaller weddings, and that it is unacceptable to disregard public safety laws when the vast majority of the population obeys then.
First of all, I want to say that my question was totally a joke (and I probably should have indicated that if it wasn't self-evident like I thought).
Secondly, I respect and agree with what you're saying here. IMO, even 1 life deserves to be bent over backwards for. What I think people are having an issue with are the following:
#1 the length of time this has unfortunately been going on for and every time we think there's light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel gets longer and the light moves out of reach, so its still unknown how long we are going to keep being in this predicament which makes it very frustrating for all;
#2 I don't think people are seeing and realizing black and white how actions are leading almost directly to deaths (and/or serious disease with long term repercussions). I think it's been mentioned somewhere here, that if everyone would go out wearing special glasses that allows them to see viral particles, we wouldn't have to impress upon anyone the urgency of the situation and convince them to take precautions. They would do it themselves proactively. I know you can scream and yell and tell people that this is so and they should just believe you without having those special glasses, but this is a classic case of אינו דומה שמוע לריאה, and unfortunately we are never going to have the seeing part.
So we will continue having various camps of people ranging from advocating for zero restrictions to full lockdown, with most falling somewhere in between, and you would be hard pressed to get anyone to change their position here until one of the above points changes. Like, for example, if a scientist or top health official, or (whoever you have faith in that is an authoritative position) gets up and says definitively that in 4 (or even 6) weeks the virus is gone 100% if every single person adheres to a clear list of guidelines, I believe many more people than now would be willing to scrupulously follow it which means that you have a lot of people changing their actions and views than what they were previously doing/thinking.
I also beg to differ that the vast majority of the population in the USA are following public health guidelines. The tens of thousands of cases confirmed daily and the unfortunate thousands of deaths reported daily are majority non-Jewish (and as an extension non-frum Jews). This is not happening in a vacuum. If only frum Jews wouldn't be following guidelines then COVID wouldn't be so prevalent all over the USA (or for that matter in most of the world).