The health stuff isn't even so clear cut. Consider the psychological and social effects of mandating that people cover their faces. It's very valuable to be able to connect on the human level and to do so with a sense of freedom.
People should become disabled and some even die just so you can see the other person's mug on the bus? Is this what you are saying?
Also, the problem here is the generalization "any severe infection" -- many otherwise healthy, young people with a reasonably mild acute phase have developed debilitating long Covid symptoms.
Western people are tbe most propagandised people on earth, they attach sence of freedom to inanimate objects like cars and someone's hairy beard
If you visited India after the first wave, most people masked, enforced by the police - as they should have. Soon after the 2nd wave (which was bad but resulted in near-endemicity(?)) - after vaccines where widely available and well accepted in India -and to this day, you will see a vast vast majority in India don't mask. A visible minority mask everywhere and are not looked down upon or derided because of it. There is no meaningful propaganda either way right now.
In Europe, in some places, there is and it's sometimes more or less subtle. Local supermarket I go to has a sign "masking is no longer mandatory but it's okay to wear a mask if it makes you feel safer". Which is not how masks are supposed to work (we were told to mask to protect others) and it shouldn't be about feelings.
Meanwhile the cleaning cart station (that sprinkles cart bars with soap/disinfectant) is collecting dust in a corner. I think it would have been nice to keep that from the covid period. But no, we have to erase memories of it.
A well fitting N95 / FFP2, or better, respirator mask protects the wearer to a large extent, even if others don't mask. The "protect the others" message was in 2020, when mostly only surgical masks were available.