What makes you think it was normal before?

Perception is a selective thing much of the time. We feel what is comfortable to us as what is normal. Some of that is habit, preference, and just a matter of personal taste. These things are OK most of the time. We do our individual stuff and feel comfortable.

So what happens when we get into a situation like the current pandemic? That event has really flipped over the table, dishes, and chairs for good measure. All our sense of normal have been flipped over with the chairs, and do we all feel frustrated by that. And it has been going on far longer that we like.

But perhaps thinking about it all as either normal and normal interrupted, we need to think of it as a singular event that defines what is normal and comfortable to us. We keep (in the US mostly I guess) want to open gums, schools, bars, etc. That may be an emotional need more than good ideas. It may be us not being able to separate ourselves from our human need to feel ok again.

A situation like the pandemic is more like a war. During a war like WWII everything we did was to the means of the war effort. We did not make many washing machines in favor of needing to make tanks, planes, ships, and the like. Everyone shared the basic sense that we had to win the war. People did not like the situation but knew it was necessary to alter normal life and put that on hold until the war was won.