My take on it, is this is being driven by people with too many other agendas (political, financial, even scientific), and most of them are taking stupid positions, primarily based on the assumption that the public is stupid, which they may not be wrong about, but tends to cause problems when you are so blatant about it.
Examples are all the guidance telling the public not to wear masks early on because masks don't help, and that wearing them wrong was worse than not wearing them at all, which Fauci later admitted was a lie when he testified before congress, when he stated the real reason was to reserve the limited supply of mask for first responders. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and we are having mandates for people to wear masks while on Zoom teleconference meetings even when they are the only person in the building in order to set a good example, and people being fined hundreds of dollars for not wearing a mask outdoors when they are nowhere near any other people. Well guess what people see through these mandates, people understand that it is easier to be understood on a telemeeting when you are not wearing a mask, it makes it easier for people to read lips, and interpret facial expressions, ... People also get the fact that there is no reasonable need to mandate masks when they are outdoors and dozens if not hundreds of feet from the nearest other person.
The same applies to all the politically motivated speakers complaining about president Trump not wearing a mask. The simple fact is he is very unlikely to catch it or give it to someone due to not wearing a mask, everyone around him is constantly being tested, and it is not like someone is going to walk up to him on the street and get within 6 or even 20 feet. Instead it is all about theater, just note how all these same people complaining about president Trump not wearing a mask say nothing about dozens of democratic politicians wearing a mask wrong in public, either under their nose, or taking it off to talk when anyone approaches them. Having said that I think it would have looked better if president Trump were to wear a mask when out and about in public, but that is optics, not science.
In the end I don't think we are going to see people start acting more responsibly until it hits their own lives, until someone they know dies from this virus, even then it will need to be someone they know who was otherwise healthy, before most people start taking this seriously. As this virus continues to spread, I feel that day is coming, so far 7 or 8 people I knew have died of this virus, though none were people that I was particularly close to, most recently a second cousin who was a the mayor of a neighboring small town who I had not seen in decades died of it, and last week one of my best friends lost an in law, both of which were active working age individuals.
