Traveling during a pandemic is not normal so I find the advice not to travel back home during a pandemic is totally normal. Doing otherwise puts everyone at risk (the traveler, people who he/she interacts with during the journey and the host/home country)

I am equally sure you probably support lock-downs, mandatory vaccination, mandatory masking, and all manner of other Draconian actions

Where me and others did not, I did not find these things to be "normal" either.

It all depends on where you place the freedom vs safety metric, I place on the far extreme end of freedom. Which is also why I oppose governments like China in general