I got a squat rack and bench with barbell/weights and some of those adjustable Bowflex dumbbells during the pandemic and I love it. I'm obviously more limited in the variety of exercises I can do vs. a full gym but I mostly did barbell/dumbbell stuff anyway.
Can't see ever going back to a commercial gym. I miss the social element and the half-dressed women but don't miss the hassle of traveling to the gym and dealing with crowds and obnoxious people. Then the "workout if I'm sick?" question becomes just an issue of do I feel good enough for this, not an issue of am I going to get other people sick?
The equipment is more affordable than I was expecting, you can get a great setup of quality stuff for ~$2000 maybe less. I highly recommend it to anyone who has the space at home for it. If you want 1000 lbs of competition-calibrated weights then yeah that's gonna cost you a lot but most people don't need that even getbiggers I think.
Good post. I've missed the social side of things for years - I moved away from the old 'bad crowd' to do the career and family thing, so I've pretty much trained solo for years now. That's one of the reasons I like this place - you all get the references and understand this weird 'hobby' of lifting - I'm too old to train another decent training partner LOL
So I've been inspired by a few on here to put together a modest home gym myself - so never mind a mask etc, I can train stark bollock naked if I want!

I really don't think I would have bothered before all this lockdown bullshit, so silver linings and all that...