My sense is those photos were taken a while ago before mask policy really set in, but dumb to put them recently out anyway.

I think the issue with politicians "not being able" to release lockdowns is not a photo put out by United, but that politicians didn't clearly articulate the objectives and criteria for the lockdowns in the first place. The goalposts are constantly moved and there are no metrics, so we never know what we're trying to achieve or how close we are to getting there. Not to mention the fact that it makes it hard for governments, businesses, and people to take action to reach goals that are not specified and measurable.

I'm not questioning whether it was a good idea to put in place some restrictions - it was, but the way politicians went about it was, and for the most part, continue to go about it, was and is bad. New York seems alone among the US states in having recently announced some metrics (spread, hospital capacity) that will guide decisions going forward, but it's too little. Nobody else has done similar to my knowledge - they say things like we need "more" testing and "better" numbers. How many tests is that in actual numbers?