FACT!

I initially didn't much fault the folks who didn't wear a mask.  We all remember the WHO and the CDC and Fauci imploring those of us not in the healthcare industry to refrain from wearing masks.  And we remember that we were told masks weren't effective and often not properly worn anyway.

There's also the news that 25% of people may have coronavirus and be asymptomatic, which, I believe can be interpreted without bias to mean that the disease is 25% absolutely harmless.

We hear about the increased threat posed to those with underlying conditions, but it seems apparent that a great majority of us don't have those underlying conditions and this makes it harder for a lot of people to relate.

YES, we learn more as time goes by.  Strategies change.  New facts emerge.  Your opinion should change along with these new facts.  But the problem is the facts just changed.

Well, we thought they were facts.  Now we have new ones.

New data supersedes the old and, correct as this new data may be, people have now been told one fact and then told the opposite fact.  This will tend to create doubt.  It leaves the door open for people to say, "Next thing you know they'll be telling us not to do THAT anymore."  Some continue to place trust in what they are being told, and some take it as license not to believe anything.

It would probably (hopefully, but then again maybe not at all) be quite different if, even in the face of a ton of contradictory medical advice, the disease were a guaranteed killer for everyone, but the stats in this case have not been so straightforward and easy to track.  "Corona-related" is not quite as definitive or impactful as "Black Plague", as in, "That motherfucker got the Black Plague", not, "His death was corona-related."

I think the plain, ugly, and sad truth is that it all leaves room for skepticism, and while I may have initially chose to wear a mask as a gesture to polite society, I didn't have much scorn for those who chose otherwise.  I think they were just a product of how the whole situation has been handled.