I'm so sorry you suffered like that, and more than once in your lifetime! I did not know you met your sweetie so recently - what a gift!
I argued against the covid measures (which did far more harm than covid) right from the beginning, saying they would harm the disadvantaged, the very populations we were supposedly trying most to protect, more than the upper middle class and above. That the measures were racist and discriminatory. But the fear factor won out, and we all lost, all of us, not just those relatively few of us who got covid, or whatever it was that was making people sick and killing them. I no longer even believe it was a virus.
I could easily have gotten as freaked out as you did. I am elderly, and at the time I was caring for a severely disabled and chronically ill person. Had I been cooped up with him, I would have gone south fast. But instead, I called all my friends and asked if they were social distancing. I found several who were not, hung out with them, invited them over for dinner, did not sanitize a single thing, did not wear a mask except to go to banks and such, did not worry about my son getting it. And guess what? He didn't, even when I had something virus-like and took no precautions when I did stuff for him. The whole thing was a sham. A terrible hoax that hopefully we will not fall for again.
Sorry to rant on your post!