Comment by tripletao

> We don't think politicians had much agency because they just followed instructions from scientists at every point.

No matter what your desired policy, you could find a scientist to support it--some scientists were advocating for Chinese-style lockdowns, while others were drafting the Great Barrington Declaration. So how do you think the politicians chose which scientist to listen to, or to promote in the mass media? It's not like they took a poll--the vast majority of scientists expressed no policy opinion at all, and simply concentrated on their actual work.

Politicians are the ones with the power to make laws, and direct the police to enforce them, if necessary with physical violence. It's amazing to me that their attempt to cloak their policy decisions in "trust the science" worked so well on you that you've absolved the people with actual power of their actions, instead directing your anger at some abstract "scientists".