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Preventing COVID-19 deaths has been elevated to a "sacred value" in society, such that those who question pandemic restrictions are morally condemned while deaths, abuses of power and public shaming that occur in the name of "preventing COVID" are deemed acceptable
The unprecedented restrictions placed upon Western civilizations in 2020 would likely have been met with protest a year earlier. But, when issued in the name of COVID-19 mitigation, people are more likely to accept what otherwise might be regarded as abuses of power, even when it leads to death, according to a team of researchers from the U.S. and New Zealand.[i]
COVID-19 has become a highly visible, politicized and publicized event, such that efforts to combat it have become moralized and even regarded as "sacred values." Once something is elevated to the level of a sacred value, even questioning anything that goes against it can "elicit moral outrage, disapproval, and a desire to reaffirm one's moral commitments."
This is certainly what's been seen with COVID-19 policy, in which people have been shamed, threatened and physically assaulted over their choices to not wear a mask[ii] or refuse to shutter their business.[iii]
The researchers predicted that when COVID-19 efforts become moralized, it would generate asymmetries in judgment that make people more accepting of harms generated as a result -- and after conducting two experimental studies, their prediction was confirmed.
Moralization Makes People More Tolerant of Public Shaming, COVID-19 'Deaths of Despair'