Of course we don't want to be reckless with our health, nor with the health of others. But let's also be realistic about the magnitude of the risks we are talking about.
When covid-19 first hit the Western world in March, we knew fairly little about it, and projections of the damage it would do varied widely, with the pessimistic ones skewing towards the apocalyptic (think "millions or tens of millions of deaths in the U.S. alone"). The public health measures that were deployed at the time were designed to protect even against such worst-case scenarios.
As time passes, we are building a more and more accurate picture of how fatal this disease is, and it's increasingly evident that the reality falls far short of the apocalyptic predictions.
According to
this Stanford study published today, to date covid-19 has killed
6 out of every million Canadians under the age of 65.
To put that number into perspective, motor vehicle accidents kill
71 out of every million Canadians per year (
source). To be sure, covid-19 has not yet been with us for a year, but even if we assume that by the time it has (~March 2021), it will have killed 10x the number it has so far (which is unlikely given that it appears to have peaked already or be in the process of peaking), that's still 60 deaths per million Canadians under 65 per year, comparable to motor vehicle accidents.
Granted, the risk to Canadians over 65 is considerably higher (though still far short of the worst-case estimates). However, this is a general concern affecting the reopening of all sectors of the economy (such as restaurants), and it can be addressed by keeping in place public health measures such as physical distancing and wearing PPE for interactions involving those over 65.
