There are aspects that almost certainly are theater. But let me ask you this...can you say for certain which ones are? Because collectively everything that California has done for the past year and a half has made a significant difference. I'm in Alabama, where things are very much the way you wish they were in California. We have no restrictions in public and lightly enforced mask restrictions in schools. No vaccine mandates, etc. We also have 2966 deaths/1 million population since the pandemic started. In California it's 1763. Translate that difference to the total population for California and it's 47,000 fewer deaths (and that number is still rising). What are you willing to put up with to save 47,000 lives? That's not even mentioning the relative benefits of making it easier to keep schools open this year. Has your son or daughter had to quarantine or go remote at any point this fall? An awful lot of kids here have had to.