U wrote "social distance and talk to ur relatives on Skype",
And missing your relatives in person would be so bad (as compared to possibly infect them)? Christmas is the most stressful time of the year, we could do without that. Yes, don't visit for Thanksgiving and Xmas, look them up on Zoom. And if grandma survived the next 3-4 months, you can visit her in the spring, when the elderly got their vaccination. Going back to Baron's question, the leadership also needs to give HOPE to people.
Look, it is going to be bad, and we might get another lock down, so it is better the lesser evil, but people have to comply with the rules, and a large part didn't.