I'm sorry you're still struggling with tribalism. But let's acknowledge your partisan retort. Yes, it's true. Many Democrat Governors had initiated lockdowns in their own states. Many Republican Governors had as well. In states governed by both parties, both parties exist. Democrats did seem (for the most part) to take a more proactive role in following advisories regarding public safety during a time of a virus outbreak for which we didn't yet have a vaccine that had a dormant period of up to two weeks, leaving transmission to be very slow, allowing one to spread the virus easily and to many before becoming aware that they themselves had the virus.
In spite of this, Republicans felt that in this time of emergency, despite the uncontrollable rate of death in April '20 (to which Trump had extended mandatory lockdowns for all states) there were reports of people from both sides disregarding the advisory and still meeting. There was a direct correlation between these events and spikes in COVID cases across the country. Mainly, the dismissal of the seriousness of the virus was propagated by Trump himself and his constituency with repeated claims of defeating the virus. Only, it was a lie (surprise, surprise.) The effectiveness of Masks was brought into question by largely the right wing is concerned that it didn't protect them, the miscommunication was held that "them" was in reference to "them" as a people, not "them" as the individual. So, when pro-maskers said, "Masks protect you." They meant "Masks protect you (the community.)" not "Masks protect you (the individual.)" Masks are effective in reducing the velocity and density of saliva, vapor, and other debris leaving your mouth just as effectively as covering your mouth when you cough. Since this virus seemed to be just as contagious as the cold, we needed people to cover their mouths at all times to reduce risk. No one ever said it would remove the threat. Though, the anti-maskers took an "all or nothing" policy. Which then anti-vaxxers would also take regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine. If it didn't work 100%, it was scary and they didn't want to get a prick in their arm.
Later there was a question regarding the lethality of the virus, after 300 million patients and over 500 million doses, there were only 1 thousand deaths. Rather than take the virtually non-existent risk of myocarditis which itself is only lethal when untreated, they'd risk it on a virus that was 1000x more lethal.
