While I've disagreed with Barto on this particular topic, I agree with where his head is at.
I say this as someone who's had a lot of unreasonable opinions - There is some kind of (metaphorical) virus or (metaphorical) demonic possession in the air that is turning into NPCs. As someone who's seen multiple people in my personal life fall victim to it, I understand the paranoia about making sure other people aren't infected.
Worse, whatever the disease is, I've never seen anyone get better once infected. It can be only managed or progress further.
I say this without any irony - When a bunch of my friends started getting the NPC virus, I was bad about being a real life hot take machine (and still can't help myself sometimes) and my life was still screwed up. Nobody would have (or should have) taken life advice from me. I wish I was in a place in my life where I could have told them to stop going down that road and they would have listened. People make their own choices, but I still feel like I failed.
The worst part is, I still don't know what to tell people. I am but an eternal contrarian. When the culture shifts and people get more level-headed (this stuff goes in cycles), I'll be the one accusing everyone of a lack of conviction. We all have our own curses.
But my bigger point is that, whatever else, screening for and trying to slow the spread of the NPC virus is imperative, even if it's annoying sometimes.