Soooo.... this isn’t China. You cannot mandate or legislate mask wearing and distancing. Are you going to arrest people? It requires voluntary compliance... something Americans have always been in short supply of...
While I don't disagree with your final sentence, the US and its localities have hundreds of laws that legislates/mandates all types of behavior. Laws against public urination, public intoxication, how many people can be in a building, truancy, mandatory vaccinations...
Conflating a mask mandate with Chinese totalitarians is nonsense. In this country, your rights end where someone elses begin. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, you can't knowingly expose someone to HIV/AIDS and you have to wear clothes in public; there are laws to punish you otherwise.
Science currently says the best way to handle this virus is to socially distance and wear a mask. Failure to do so may spread the virus to someone else unwillingly, which could result in their death. If people are unwilling to comply with these facts to protect others and stop the spread, then that's exactly when a law or mandate should come in.
We only had to resort to drastic measures like a shutdown because we were unable as a country to stop the spread quickly enough (for many reasons), so science at that time said a shutdown was best. This was an unfortunate consequence of our initial response, not a gleeful display of deep state power against small businesses.
It boggles my mind that following the recommendation of infectious diseases experts and using laws and executive orders to enforce them when not voluntarily complied with, has been twisted into a moral battle on American freedom, especially while we are still in the midst of said pandemic.
