– “not because of a virus which is no longer a danger to the vast majority of people”
Covid is a danger to everyone because it spreads so fast that it overwhelms health services, turning hospitals into centres of infection and thereby closing them to the general public, and infecting and killing the medical staff.
“Anti-lockdown” arguments focussed exclusively on the death rate, but covid-19’s death rate is highly variable depending upon availability of medical treatment. For every one hundred people requiring hospital care (eg. simple oxygen support), ten require intensive care (eg. invasive ventilation), of whom between five (at first) and three (later, when understanding of treatment had improved) die.
Now run those figures for the whole population but with no social restrictions. Infection prevalence was doubling every week in the first wave, and every fortnight in the second. As soon as intensive care is full, nearly ten out of ten requiring it die, ie. the death rate doubles or triples. As ordinary ward beds fill and oxygen support becomes unavailable, more patients progress to requiring intensive care, but it’s already saturated.
Meanwhile the medical staff are falling ill any dying, so healthcare provision decreases still further.
Covid is still a danger because vaccination can’t be administered nearly as fast as covid can spread. This is obvious if you think about it; covid can be passed on anywhere, from anyone to anyone, but vaccination can only be administered by trained staff at specific distribution centres. There’s time for another wave yet before vaccination can protect the population.