Behavioral changes were compelled on false premises. That generated the vast majority of the push-back and acrimony. Closing borders was racist. Fauci admitted

Behavioral changes were compelled on false premises. That generated the vast majority of the push-back and acrimony. Closing borders was racist. Fauci admitted he intentionally misled people [1]. It was totally natural and totally not even conceivable that it had been engineered or part of a program that intentionally makes viruses more infectious. Masks don't work. Masks do work (even though we now know it to be aerosol, not droplet like the flu). So on and so forth. It is hard to maintain an air of credibility when you are consistently proving to not be credible. [1] https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/90445 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/90445 (the source NYT article was paywalled)