I saw some of the pictures of those protests. Those 20000 were packed. Masks go only so far, social distancing is a big part of preventing spread. I saw a lot of mocking on IG of people going to the beach in Florida, but for myself I would be less worried of catching the virus on the beach than in a protest, even if everyone wore a mask. By the way, those masks need to be replaced every few hours, or washed for those who use the cloth ones.
You could argue that the protest is important enough that even if the virus spreads it would be worth it and I'll not argue with that.
But in the current political climate no one would dare question the claims the protests do not spread the virus. I did see though some left wing media outlets refer to Trump's rallies as super-spreader rallies, even though they too were in the open air and people wore masks. I would guess Trump's rallies were also shorter since people gathered to hear the man speak and went home. Protests don't always have a definitive end point.

In Israel during the lockdowns there also was special permission to protest. I could not go play tennis which is as safe a sport as can be but if I said I'm going to protest then that's fine. Restaurants couldn't open but synagogues could because they have more political clout. That kind of stuff makes you feel decisions are arbitrary.
So regarding your fire and gasoline, if the person also said we need to chop off your thumb, you can still believe there's a fire but maybe you'll take your chance with the fire.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very careful and haven't hugged my parents for a year. But I'm lucky in that my profession was minimally scathed. Who says making a 40 year old with dependents unemployable or collapsing a family business or even a billionaire's hotel chain is less terrible than twenty 80 year olds losing 2 years of their life ? Its these situation which make me happy I don't have to make these decisions.