Why is that suddenly a problem? We always had it. Most people posing danger to others in one or the other way. Driving a car is the most obvious example but there are countless other
We take reasonable, targeted measures to mitigate the risks. What we don't do is embark on a grand social program to eradicate freeway crashes, because such a program would involve banning or heavily restricting cars and we feel cars are too important for that.
The car/cancer/heart-disease analogies are inherently flawed because they're not communicable. If my road rage started a chain reaction across the Interstate causing 45K people to die in a month, I think we'd stop driving until we figured out what was going on.
Every car has to pass a bunch of certifications to be legal to drive on the road. It has to pass a (4-, 2- or 1-)yearly checkup, has to be registered, insurance has to be paid, road tax, etc. Also the driver has to pass a theoretical and a practical exam, has to be of certain age, not be under influence of any of many substances, has to obey a bunch of traffic laws, etc. And we also have check for all that, from police controls, to speed cameras, alco-testers, etc.
Again going back to the cars example: if you did not "just shrug our shoulders at the risks" each car will be equipped with alcohol detecting interlock at the minimum. Of course the society "shrugs the shoulder" as soon as it inconveniences it a bit too much.
Why do you think speeding and drunk driving is illegal? There's a risk/benefit threshold and society has decided that regular driving is below that threshold but drunk and reckless driving is above it. When a pandemic is in effect some of the activities that would be acceptably low-risk in a normal context suddenly become unacceptably high risk.
"Why do you think speeding and drunk driving is illegal" - so far drunk driving is the leading cause of death for young drivers. I do not see electronic immobilizers installed in the cars by default to prevent those deaths. Care to guess why?
As for "suddenly become unacceptably high risk" - it seems that governments do not have much clue and nearly enough info on this particular subject ( COVID )
