Thick as bowl of oatmeal!
"entirely opposed to helping those at the bottom of the class system" - that's at least a bit of an exaggeration, but yes, I had NO idea when I moved here exactly how selfish the culture could be. See, you talk about the POLITICAL culture, but it all starts with the PEOPLE.
Now, I'm not "demanding" anything, YOU ARE. You would shut down EVERYTHING in a desperate attempt to save yourself, and with you many others. Even though it was clear from the beginning, at least according to Osterholm, that we could not stop the virus from infecting just about everybody. We got lucky, very effective vaccines were developed before it got to everyone, so any delay was perhaps worth the damage that the lockdowns did. Now, YOU have the opportunity to protect yourself from serious disease, and it's clear that the vaccination status of others will not make a material difference in how many will eventually get infected. Most doctors are now saying everyone will get it. You can't lock OTHERS down for as long as you want arbitrarily...
I would (have) shut down as much as possible, largely to protect my elderly relatives and friends with chronic medical conditions. But I would have provided financial support for those at the bottom who are adversely affected by it - as, slightly surprisingly, even our Tory government has to a significant degree done (trying to keep on-side all those former Red Wall voters, I guess). The right in the US has been pretty consistent in trying to avoid providing any such support.
There's no absolute rule that says it has to be those 'waitresses and barstaff' who suffer economically as a result of pandemic measures, that's a political choice.