Where to start...elitism is not and has never been known as totalitarianism. you could look it up. Second, this question has NOTHING to do with culture, unless of course your culture demands that you ignore medical science. Are you a Christian Scientist? Your "gentleness" can cause disease and death if it leads you, or the people who you are able to convince, to not wear masks under the guidelines established by the CDC. I realize that the mask "debate" has its roots in politics, not culture, and that people feel deeply about their politics.

The true tragedy here is that to gain political advantage our president has convinced his followers that the disease is a hoax, has blocked the public health measures like aggressive testing, mask wearing, and contact tracing that would have allowed us to get it under control, to avert more than 100.000 deaths, and of course to get the economy back on track. S. Korea found their first case on the same day we did, their president aggressively followed those public health steps, ours thwarted them. S. Korea has had fewer than 400 deaths, we are now at 200,000. These are facts, not opinions, or "culture".