I think you’re on-target both about covid and in general, about risk analysis vs. a safety heuristic. There are even degrees of this; even a motorcyclist who drove safely and practiced all reasonable safety precautions would be heckled by someone if they were to crash through no fault of their own, die, and leave behind their family behind. “What did they think would happen?” You could even say that the common victim-blaming tropes are reinforcing a norm that puts safety permanently out of reach, so that they are always “morally blameworthy” or in other words, responsible, for what’s happened.
I think the “qualitative difference” you’re describing is just the safety/risk dichotomy. Risk is irrelevant to safety, and safety is not a way of comparing risks.
I think you’re on-target both about covid and in general, about risk analysis vs. a safety heuristic. There are even degrees of this; even a motorcyclist who drove safely and practiced all reasonable safety precautions would be heckled by someone if they were to crash through no fault of their own, die, and leave behind their family behind. “What did they think would happen?” You could even say that the common victim-blaming tropes are reinforcing a norm that puts safety permanently out of reach, so that they are always “morally blameworthy” or in other words, responsible, for what’s happened.
I think the “qualitative difference” you’re describing is just the safety/risk dichotomy. Risk is irrelevant to safety, and safety is not a way of comparing risks.