we protect ourselves from covid because it's new so we don't have as much research on it as we do other diseases.
i have another outbreak i can compare it to as well
i used to live in hawaii from when i was 2 to when i was 7. during this time, there was an outbreak of "breaking bone fever" otherwise known as dengue fever. it's spread by mosquitoes, and it can be deadly in some cases, depending on your health before contracting it. It gets it's name from the pains that come with it, which have been said to feel like broken bones. You also may get a rash, and flu symptoms.
this outbreak would have been really bad if it was a new strain of bacteria. but, since we had seen it before, we knew how to deal with it.
Covid_19, on the other hand, was an entirely new and unfamiliar strain of the original coronavirus, and we didn't have much knowledge on it. we're still learning more about it, as it mutates into even more unknown variants.
danger is less dangerous the more you know about it.
and while we have learned a lot more about covid, we still don't know enough to let our guard down