I have been mulling over the idea that the pandemic mandates were an intentional tactic to make the general populace unhappy and dissatisfied with life in the run up to the election. Trump had done what was thought impossible with restoring the economy after Obama/Biden pretty much destroyed it and was heading for a shoo-in victory.

The pandemic itself was bad enough due to lives lost but the economic impact from the closures and the general unhappiness about lockdowns and mandatory masks seemed targeted toward stirring up the generally uninformed population. In addition, they gave the MSM and others an opportunity to paint Trump supporters as uncaring ("you want to kill Grandma") and ignorant ("believe the science" -- always laughable coming from people who couldn't pass high school physics). The same morons freaking out over barbecues and picnics saw no problem with clustering and yelling (way to spew more saliva in the air) at "peaceful protests".

There were lots of instances of ignorant people protesting the masks and lockdowns -- the facts are that if we'd been more diligent about tackling the spread, we could probably have beat it down much sooner but it would have been at great cost in liberties as well as finances. Of course, Trump and Pence are being given no credit for coordinating a federal response that accelerated not just development but testing of the various vaccines in ways that were allegedly impossible. Somehow, Joe the Idiot gets credit despite all the vaccines being developed before Election Day.

As far as mask burning goes, count me out. I'll be happy to retire my masks but I'm keeping them for my international travels just in case. The experience in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. shows that broad mask wear does help slow the spread of respiratory viruses.