Mt. Etna.. how close is too close?

I lived fairly close to Mt. St. Helens when it erupted. I would never discount the power of a volcano with an explosive eruption.

“How close is too close?” People were running away from the eruption with boiling rocks rolling down the hill behind them. This isn’t a joking matter.

While watching the news coverage I was surprised at the tourists who paused to take pictures of the eruption.
We are paying close attention to reports of the activity in the Campi Phlegrei as we prepare for our annual trip to Naples. There has been a lot of bradyseism coupled with tremors recently.

We were there for an ash eruption in 2019. The impact of ash cloud depends on which way the wind was blowing. The Catania airport was intermittently shut down depending on the wind direction, and we had to fly out of Palermo. But you could see and smell the ash in Catania, coating everything and making people cough. But the residents were not concerned at all. It was just "Mama Etna" reminding them she was there.

Given there is an Geophysics institute in Italy constantly monitoring volcanic activity, I was surprised that there were tourists so close to the summit. I didn't see that there was a warning?

April 14 on a non-rigorous walk, we were at 6000 feet at a base camp--amazingly, it looked positively Alpine. To go further--our guide said--we would need special shoes, advice from a volcanologist, and be prepared to hike for hours at a stretch. It was banging & booming, sounding like thunder, and we'd see the occasional plume and get occasional ash rain, not too heavy.

That night we could hear more booms from our balcony in Taormina, and at 3AM there was a 4.8 earthquake. Then as now, the locals are incredibly unaffected & unimpressed.

INSIGHT GUIDE ITALY (2017 edition):

NAPLES (page 337)
“Aware that 1 million people are sitting on a time bomb and that a major eruption is overdue, the Italian authorities offered to re-house local families, but the take-up from Neapolitans has been minimal”.

CATANIA (page 369-370)
“a massive eruption in 2017 forced authorities to shut down Catania airport” --- “the city was covered in 1669 by lava which even advanced into the sea for about 700 meters (2300 ft)”.

It's just a question of time.