Someone coined the phrase "national security theater" to describe the complex and sometimes absurd policies adopted after 9/11: TSA searching elderly grandmothers in preference to young Muslim men to avoid profiling, for example. The danger was real, but much of it reminded me of seeing two bobbies in a London airport carrying submachine guns at port arms, half a machine gun burst apart. It was really to give the illusion of safety. Two plainclothes officers with concealed handguns some distance apart would have been more effective, but less theatrical.
COVID-19 is a real public health crisis, but requiring masks at home while teleconferencing (Wisconsin) or in uncrowded open air (Illinois) are both public health theater.
I refer to TSA as "Teatro de la Seguridad del Absurdo', Spanish for "Security Theater of the Absurd (aka valueless)", which is the term Joe Huffman at View from South Central Idaho uses.
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