It's a multitude of things. Masks are free money for corporations and serve the valuable role of enforcing compliance on a population. It's a religious dress code (sumptuary law) in the same way yarmulkes are for Jewish men or burkas are for Muslim women, it's a sign of compliance that you are one of them and if you aren't, a sign that you are under their control. Defying a law like that is a signal to the authorities you are committing even worse sins. They are also a very visible symbol that the Virusreich is in control, and the Virusreich exists "for your safety against the pandemic". If nobody but a few wackjobs wore masks, people would forget about the totally real pandemic and would start to question the other absolutely necessary measures like vaccine passports and lockdowns. They can't abandon mask mandates, it is their number one symbol and will invite all manner of wrongthink on the population.
The end goal is to get everyone vaccinated, because it's yet another form of control. The world leaders believe they can totally eradicate the virus just like smallpox, which is hilarious lunacy on so many levels (look at all the objectively worse diseases like polio, malaria, AIDS, etc. they haven't been able to eradicate). But the goal is eradication, because if they change their minds now then all the hardship they imposed on the people will be for nothing and their entire system will collapse. So mass vaccination it is. Vaccinations serve the secondary purpose of making Pharma filthy rich, because novel vaccines you have to take 2-3 doses of every year simply to be allowed to function in society is a giant money printer, it's practically the holy grail to Pharma. Meanwhile the people involved in data and the flow of information like Big Tech would love nothing more than a digital "passport" you have to keep with you at all times lest you not be allowed in society, and now they finally have the reason to impose it. They'll have yet more information on you to sell to advertisers, governments, etc.
I too don't believe vaccines are some inherently evil thing, but the risk simply does not match the benefit. So many powerful entities are making huge profits from their pandemic and above all else obtaining huge amounts of power. But this goes down to even local officials, who get free money from the government when they exaggerate their amount of cases and deaths and the moral high they get by forcing people to comply with health orders "for everyone's good."
