Everywhere I keep reading comments that suggest you pretty much deserved what you got and americans only have themselves to blame because 'if everyone just wore masks' it 'could have been contained'. Literally nothing suggests that, no other country in the world shows any statistics to back this up, and the situation is pretty much as bad as or worse in many parts of the world that did mandate masks and had lock-downs, while it is much better in other parts of the world that did none of these things. Europe is the prime example of this, there's so much variation in the measures that different countries took, but I literally see zero correlation with infection rates or deaths, not up until the point where countries go into lock-downs that dramatically limit the movement of people and the chance of getting in contact with 'strangers' that you would never get in contact with if you worked from home, did not go to bars or restaurants, did not use public transport, etc. But these measures are not sustainable long-term, so sooner or later they are relaxed and the infections start to go up again, with or without face masks, with or without people doing 'everything in their power to stop the virus' because they are traumatised by the first wave. Just look at Italy, one of the hardest hit countries in Europe in the first wave, and the place they are now in again. If anything, the countries that were the first to issue mask mandates and kept expanding them (Italy, France, Spain, Belgium) are now all at the bottom of the list in terms of covid infections and deaths in the second wave.
I'll probably get downvoted into oblivion by saying as much because it's already clear to me that in the US wearing face masks is more like a religion or a political statement, but alas... The main point I wanted to make is that blaming yourself and others for the situation you are in because it 'would have been easy to contain, if only...' is not backed up by any evidence, and IMO just a form of self-torture.