[IIAOPSW]

I think there is a significant fraction of people for whom their system of reasoning about the world fundamentally follows the same design patterns as religion and the best we can hope for is that they "convert to the church of trusting the experts". Covid really exposed the thought process.

Basically, as I surmise was happening in their mind, the distancing / mask guidelines became the sins, anyone who forgot or followed it imperfectly even once was a bad person, anyone who did get it must have sinned (or someone near to them did), and so long as you never sin it won't happen to you. Implicitly anyone who got it did something to deserve it, as there's no such thing as bad things happening to good people randomly.