There is a long religious tradition of suffering for the sake of faith in order to signal one's virtue or gain favor with a deity. While some pandemic control measures such as vaccination and mitigating co-morbid conditions are well supported by evidence based medicine, others have become kind of a weird secular religion largely detached from science.

I think some people just want to feel like they're in control. Surely if I dance in a circle while beating a drum the rains will come. Surely if I wear the sacred garment and perform the proper cleansing rituals the virus will see my piety and spare my life.