Set aside a few weekends and mess around distro hopping. Think of it as a small scientific study. Use what you determine to be the most comfortable.

I suggest being clever in your partitioning keeping /home and any other areas personal to their own partition if not their own disks. If you want to experiment you lose nothing by wiping / and installing something else. Also, you should decide on an effective backup strategy.

I would not vote guilty on your jury.

As good as it would feel to support this sentiment, every one of these “antivax idiots” that catches covid gives the virus more generations to mutate. Creating a danger to us all.