“I tried to balance my own view on what is right with not offending the locals. ”
There’s no issue of offending people. They aren’t judging you as you are judging them.
“I think distance was less visibly jarring to them than being over-masked. ”
Again, what are you talking about?? Your masks and your distance aren’t “jarring”! (Seriously?) They don’t care. Your willingness to be less careful is not their doing. It comes from knowing the danger doesn’t really exist. If it did, you would never compromise for perceived insult.
“After all, their local cougher ”
You do realize there are other viruses besides covid out there, right?
“but he did not look like he cared much.”
I think he really cared a lot but was afraid of jarring you with overjudgementalism so he just wandered around hoping you wouldn’t have him thrown out.