and how it doesn't prevent transmission nor infection
This I don't quite follow, if you have the vaccine then you're more likely to be asymptomatic if/when you catch the virus, and therefore will be less likely to cough your lungs out on others, no?
But the rest I think I get. Everyone talks about idealistic Anne-of-Green-Gables village lifestyle, where your kids can run free, parents can get support from their church communities, everyone knows their neighbours and so leave their doors unlocked, and people buy and sell locally.
The price you pay for all this support, of course, is your independence. You can't not go to church, you can't say bad things about the pastor, and you can't not buy the tiny rotten carrots from your neighbour and thank him for it.
The problem with living life independently is, of course, losing any of the above mentioned community support. Even among so-titled progressives, there is the cultishness that shuns those who even dare question the hypocrisy within the group at points where it feels like the group is being misled. I've felt this in many subreddits, small local political groups (of which I am no longer an active member), and my own family to various degrees.
I don't know what the solution is. I feel that the problem is mostly size and hierarchy. In small sized groups, people can hold wildly different opinions but no one is feeling too out of place or persecuted because there are not enough people in the group to pull rank over one another. But as the group expands, then tribalism forms and that's where opinions start to become guidelines, and then you get tiered structures and then things become a bit more oppressive (in my opinion).
I'm not really an anarchist mind you, more of a federalist where I think heirarchies can be used effectively if there is consent at each step of the way, but large groups undergoing opinion flux wary me to some degree.