There's enough evidence out there to indicate that things like mask mandates and limiting indoor gathering, regardless of where, worked if people actually followed them.
this seems fallacious,maybe no true scottsman. So the counter argument would be "mask mandates and limiting indoor gathering (to the extent done in the U.S. which I think was woefully insufficient) didn't always work, see x, y, z". And then this could always be countered "but there was a mandate but it wasn't followed". I mean is there any way the argument doesn't become a closed one that could not possibly be disproved by any possible evidence because every counter example is met with "but it wasn't followed"?

Mind you as a factual matter, I don't even believe it was all caused by "but it wasn't followed" anyway. It was to a large part driven by crowded living conditions and workers working essential jobs, at least as much as it ever was due to "bad people doing things they shouldn't". But sure since there was no real enforcement attempted, other countries had stricter enforcement but the U.S. never did, people breaking rules will always exist to some degree, if they didn't want it, maybe there should have been some enforcement.

I don't really blame the pandemic on the people's of this country by and large. I think that's a dishonest deflection those with actual power use to deflect their share of responsibility. It's straight up manipulation so that they never have to be held accountable for their actions.

I blame it on leaders, structural factors, and a certain amount of dumb bad luck perhaps. Polls often showed the majority wanted things not to be opened up so quickly in the spring, people were very cooperative then. It wasn't the majority of the people who wanted what happened, but government leaders made their choices driven by policy in D.C., driven by economic worries etc.. Certain things like masks became bizarrely politicized (in part due to Trump sure), but there was nothing all that inevitable in that either, it's just how it unfolded. The public health authorities gave bad advice after bad advice (never emphasized the difference between indoor and outdoor). They were objectively bad. As people we trudge along anyway maybe we know the difference between indoor and outdoor, maybe we don't, but many people tried to do the best they could, despite government failing almost utterly. All we ever got from them who had the actual power to have clear public communication and didn't and to close things down and didn't in time, was shaming, never a single thank you to all those doing what they understood, when powerful people's decisions on putting business first overwhelmed the hospitals.