Your second point about "restrictive regimes" is also baffling. Which are you calling restrictive? Again, to compare my home (VIC, Australia) with Accra, Ghana, both are democracies, both are safe and free, and both instigated mask mandates, though Accra's was put in place many months earlier than Melbourne's. There are no mask protests in Ghana but ongoing mask protests in Australia, and not because of "restrictive regimes". In fact Australia is enforcing its mandate more strictly than Ghana. I would wager that the protests reflect a key difference in the impact of Covid: some countries apparently value perceived "personal freedom" over civic duty and communal responsibility. I would say Australia is one of those countries, and has fared the worse for it.