There is an old saying that people like to throw around: "Safety First", which implies that in everything we do, safety considerations should take precedence over everything else. Mike Rowe has explained that if we were truly living the safety first mantra, we wouldn't accomplish anything. Instead he suggest that we live most of our lives under the "Safety Third", a concept much more aligned with the reality of life and embraced by engineers across the world.
Life is inherently dangerous and it's our instinct and common sense that keep us alive, not compliance to some faceless safety officer that has been crowned the king of safety by some faceless bureaucrat.
Now we can understand the ramifications of "Safety First" from a psychological perspective with this recent Ted Talk called "The Security Junkie Syndrome", through the lens of the pandemic.
Enlightening.