* The things that show you when you're ill are delayed a lot of the time from my experience so you can't definitively know OOCly, let alone ICly. You can blame whoever or whatever, but then you start to tread into small-worlding and I don't feel very comfortable with that *.
There's characters whose primary purpose in-game is to gather data. That's a great opportunity to reach out for those types of characters or to work with people to see if you can start narrowing it down based on experiences. Following a paper trail. Or figurative vomit trail.
* Unless I'm a fixer-type character or someone really clued in on things (and I don't suspect many people are), I'm not going to know. I could ask someone and take their word for it I guess. *
Asking people and doing this type of stuff are great ways to interact with other characters if that's something your character would do/you find fun.
* I see where you're going with this but it still isn't very fun to me. *
* This sounds great on paper, but I need you to look at this through the lens of a newer character with very few connections or means to get any of this stuff: what are they supposed to do? Who am I meant to sell my soul to? I'm nothing, nobody, relying mostly on the OOC good will of people trying to key immigrants into things and spending a lot of their money in the process.
There's every chance for them that I just won't log on again after I've had my entire point for playing upended without prelude or warning because I went outside to run crates on a plague day.
You're right that it is a choice and its a choice that a lot of people are going to make because the alternate is not anywhere near as accessible as you're making it out to be. *
For this point from you and also a comment from QueenZombean, you aren't wrong that a lot of us are older players And sometimes we do forget what it's like. But you're also assuming we haven't gone through it on new characters, whether in the past and current times. I'm someone who has had plague like events happen to my new characters multiple times. New as within weeks to a month old.
And it's perfectly cool if plague stuff doesn't appeal to you, you don't find it fun, or your character chooses to stay inside. Not everything is for everyone. But it's important to remember options are on the table, what we do with those options are up to us, and if you're feeling up to even a tiny adventure, go try some of the options. Even if they're done in small steps and scaled to how you want your experience to go, just getting your feet wet.
I can tihnk of no other time in the game's history while I have played have there been more options for charity and free stuff available to new characters than there has been over the last eighteen months, lasting to this day in the right here, right now. Nibble on the bait and see how that works out. It might be fun!