When someone is rewarded with attention for a social position, it tends to polarize their views. The politicization of Covid opinion shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. There's a strong self congratulatory component to alarmist opinions. A restaurant re-opened in my city recently and they posted a bunch of ads proclaiming they're, "opening responsibly" picturing their servers wearing masks. Public perception being the key point of consideration, not necessarily the efficacy of forcing laborers to hide their faces behind spit covered masks. The attitude in general seems to be, "post a sign blaming people for Covid-19 next to the door, some sanitizer, aaaand we're done." Opposed to something like propping the door and ensuring customers don't all touch the same door knob, for example.