Good point
A good friend of mine said this morning, “I know masks aren’t comfortable, but neither are bras, and a large portion of the population wear them for far less important reasons.”
This article suggest lack of social cohesion and faith in government institutions may well be key, US and indeed UK could have done a much better job of using public service broadcasts and publicity to put the case for control measures - but in both UK/US there is a selfish attitude, and politics int eh US especially means that public trust is not there across the population - there is a lack of personal social responsibility. https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-government-trustworthy-again/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
This definitely seems to match my observations of some groups in the UK - some of the young seem to feel they can do as they like and simply do not care, in the US complying with protective measures is seen as a political act that could be seen as infringement of liberty. In both cases the sense of personal rights takes precedence, yet all the evidence is that absolutely nothing in industry, consumer goods or any aspect of life is possible without cooperation, and that selfishness is exactly the reason why there is a run on shops for certain items when there would have been no lack of these items if each person had understood their social obligations. If any lesson is to be learned its that individualism is way overrated, and conflating freedom with individualism is likely to cost the US its self inculcated belief that it is somehow special and entitled, risking a drop from its position of world preeminance, in time its possible that US markets will just become irrelevant to the rest of the world.
I think Trump’s aversion to wearing a mask is only 35% vanity. It’s 65% doubling down on his message, which is: don’t worry. Everything’s fine. Nothing to see here. Back to normal! (followed by crossing his fingers and praying (to Baal, I assume) that the market goes up. ) Wearing a mask would be contradicting that message.