I experienced this myself with U.S. Navy boot camp, where something I did not enjoy to start felt normal and comfortable:
As the vaccine has brought the promise of liberation from a year of masks, lockdowns, canceled travel plans, and forgone family visits, there is a contingent of Americans who are simply not prepared to move on. They have somehow gotten used to the restrictions and are wary of returning to their pre-COVID-19 lives. In short, they’ve become “institutionalized.”
Reality is that if we wait until the pandemic is eradicated or base restrictions and approved behavior on avoiding even the slightest risk, the lockdown and other measures will never end.
And, if we were consistent, even if COVID-19 became like smallpox and only kept in lab freezers, those attitudes would mean we would never live our lives for myriad other reasons.