I’ve been saying for 2 or 3 weeks now that not wearing masks and gloves in public was a political statement by many of those folks.
Here is an article that says the same thing: Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans.
From the article:
For progressives, masks have become a sign that you take the pandemic seriously and are willing to make a personal sacrifice to save lives. Prominent people who don’t wear them are shamed and dragged on Twitter by lefty accounts. On the right, where the mask is often seen as the symbol of a purported overreaction to the coronavirus, mask promotion is a target of ridicule, a sign that in a deeply polarized America almost anything can be politicized and turned into a token of tribal affiliation.