We should have the attitude that protecting others is good.

This flies in the face of North American “exceptional/radical individualism”.

Asian societies are largely collective. You do what you can to serve others, putting the needs of the community ahead of your own, and this leads to tighter-knit, stronger, and more resilient communities.

North American society is based on “muh rights” individualism, where the person is most important, and society needs to serve their needs, and not the other way around. This leads to weak, ephemeral, almost non-existent communities that are there only in name, or by a fluke of geography that makes completely random people cluster together without ever making serious or deep social connections.

Of the two, the former might end up being stifling to creatives and neuroatypicals, but the latter cannot survive any significant challenge without a significantly negative impact on the “community”.

They still do reduce transmission to yourself but yeah, the big win is in not spreading it yourself.

Masks are more effective in protecting others if you are sick, rather than protecting yourself if others are sick.

This was 100% not the messaging that was told to the public in the beginning.

I don't know about other countries, but the on and off lockdowns in some countries proved to be ineffective. Many experts said it's better to do lockdown in one go than it being staggered and having different levels of restrictions. But on the one hand, the totalitarian zero-COVID restriction like had happened in China is just as ineffictive.

If you're going to lock the country down then you need to support small businesses too. Imagine spending long nights building a business only to see it disappear under COVID restrictions. And then you learn that the restrictions weren't necessary.