The vast majority of people believe what the government tells them, and the government tells that that Covid is no longer happening and you have nothing to worry, everyone has returned to work, and masking is now only something that criminals use to hide their identity.

We also live in a world where companies believe its perfectly fine to capture biometric data without disclosure or consent, despite the laws in many places saying directly to the contrary, and you don't have a choice because they fired all the cashiers.

When you bring it up they say, that's 15 levels above me (the store manager) we don't have a choice, its all up to corporate, this isn't happening, oh that green border it is, I'll make sure to forward your feedback to corporate (I won't buy anything from you, or come to your store if you do this).

The companies involved are running not on profit from sales, but rather from something else. I wonder what that could possibly be. This is what happens under monopoly, and this is how monopoly fails.

Is the company one of those companies who have been silently nationalized? Do they run on laundered promises from government instead? (money-printing).

This seems likely given they aren't changing their direction despite drops in sales.