Yes, and I would go further and say that most anything said about COVID in the public sphere is going to be far more a political statement than a scientific one

Yes, and I would go further and say that most anything said about COVID in the public sphere is going to be far more a political statement than a scientific one. Even something like "vaccines work" is far more a political statement than a scientific statement. The domain of each relevant science is narrow. And so many areas of science are relevant to any person wanting to understand enough to know how personally to change their behavior in the face of a pandemic. An epidemiologist can say some very specific scientifically proved things. A virologist will say some others. A psychology researcher will say another. An education researcher, another - and so on. And then within these disciplines there will be various disagreements. Go further and science isn't enough. There are moral and ethical questions involved, such as how to balance hurting children and the poor to protect the elderly, etc. The idea that the public should "follow the science" is patently absurd as it has no meaning other than "follow my suggestions".