The unspoken truth in this entire thread and similar threads in this forum for the past year is that the differences between pro- and anti-mask wearers are profound and probably immutable:
- Caring about oneself versus caring about others and the whole of society
- Searching for scientific truth versus believing demagogues
- Reflective versus led by emotions
- Seeking social progress versus regressing to a primitive social state
- Commitment to social responsibility versus claiming total personal freedom
- Feeling connected to others (globally) versus clinging to individual identity
These orientations run so deep that there is very little chance that a person will "switch sides" in mid life. They are part and parcel of who we are. For many people, these ways of thinking and being originated in childhood, where we came from, who our parents are. Some may break away from their social and political roots, but by the time you're in your mid twenties, you've probably chosen a camp and intend to stay there.
Is there any hope of repairing this divide, before it destroys us? (Because it WILL destroy us, whether through this pandemic or the next or, certainly, the climate crisis.) We're sort of out of time. The vast social changes that are needed take centuries, millennia, or maybe we just don't have it in us as a species to come together and solve these massive crises ever. We would need to develop such a high level of social cooperation that our desire for survival of the SPECIES would outweigh our individual desire for self-preservation at the expense of the species.
The fatal flaw in humans is that the instinct for individual preservation is built into our genetic makeup, but not the awareness that in order for us to survive individually, our species must survive.
That in a nutshell explains why people are unwilling to wear a mask to protect other people. They don't understand that if hundreds of millions of people get sick and die, eventually they themselves will either be killed by the virus or they will suffer some other grave consequence through economic collapse, collapse of the food system, social chaos, etc.
I'm not a philosopher. For a take on these questions from a real philosopher, this 2020 book looks well worth reading:
The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, by Oxford University philosopher Toby Ord
https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Exi.../dp/0316484911