I think what I misunderstood about the second wave was that people would have learned any lessons from the first

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things we did not learn from the first wave.
-Covid is primarily airborne and droplet spread is secondary, fomites marginal if relevant at all
-Covid is overdispersed, i.e. mostly driven by medium to large clusters

-masks are helpful and should be mandatory in virtually all indoor settings
-the vast majority of pubs and restaurants cannot be made safe
-schools and universities are obvious candidates for plague-pits

-in the UK: people will comply with virtually anything they are forced to do, but you do actually have to force them or at least heavily guilt-trip them rather than just ask them nicely