COVID—Did we learn anything, aside from moral grandstanding?

I just came back from a two week trip to England. One observation is stunning: no one is doing any Covid-precautions. No masks, no nothing. All restrictions were lifted in the UK from Feb. 24. Even in the London tube you only see the odd person wearing a mask (probably tourists), 99% nothing. My wife and I were both wearing masks in England in all situations I would have in Europe — and were the only ones.

We had the strongest political interference into our personal rights since I was born, and this is roughly half a century. Such measures can be warranted but shout for open discussion, as fas as I am concerned. I am certainly not opposed to measures against a pandemic that are working, but the observations are starting to get really odd. Now I look at some data

(1) Germany and Austria, with strong measures, had numbers way above England and the US over the last three months, before Christmas the situation was seemingly a bit different but over the last 6 - 9 months certainly roughly the same. The principal patterns over time are pretty similar though.

(2) Now look at Florida and California: Florida, a red state, had barely any measures, California on the other hand, as woke as it gets, has/had among the strongest measures in the US, as far as I know. Both curves over the last 6 months are roughly identical. 

Some context here: Florida has ~22Mio (126/km2), California ~40 Mio (98/km2) inhabitants. Florida also has a much older population and should generally be hit harder.

Anyways: I want to be clear about one thing: I am not against measures, I am just stunned that none of these things are discussed in the popular media, for instance in Austria, as far as I see it. Why? If we take measures that cost a fortune and limit our freedom considerably, I think we should know if they work. Instead we are entirely polarised in an important topic. These aspects have to be discussed in public, do we not want to loose the majority of our population in the political process. 

Did we make a mistake in the past, did we err on the side of safety, fine. I want to know though for the future. Were our measures working and appropriate? Also fine, then explain these and other inconsistencies.

So what is going on? My gut feeling is that we still don't really have a reasonable clue what is going on with Covid, especially as far as epidemiology is concerned. But our »experts« nonetheless happily share their opinions as if they are indisputable facts, even though the next expert claims the opposite. At the same time we make a moral not a reason problem out of it, which is really not a good idea, should we want to learn from this disaster, that was our reaction to the pandemic.

There is certainly the possibility that this data is crap, but that does not make the situation better: why would John Hopkins & Co then publish and aggregate data that is nonsensical? Just because you can? Makes us all feel like real scientists or at least rational citizens, when we use Our World in Data, believing, we make better decisions with more data, but do we?

Opposed to two years ago, when evidence based decision was not an option, now it is. Are we really operating evidence based and discussing it? I cannot see that.

What will we do in Autumn, should the next wave come? The same procedure as every year?