They defer to the scientific consensus of people who specialize in understanding how viruses work, how pandemics work, and who have a process for learning facts by interrogating reality.
Consensus brought us an earth centric solar system and low fat heart healthy grains with an obesity epidemic and rampant heart disease.
I mean, I suppose the opposite of consensus is tyranny.
It sounds like your problem may be that people sometimes get it wrong, and not consensus or its opposites?
Science converged on heliocentrism as quickly as it possibly could once we had instruments precise enough for heliocentrism to be the simplest model. The only reason the Earth-centric system overtook previous heliocentric theories was that it was most consistent with observable facts.
Do you have some other system you'd like to propose that ignores observable facts? Maybe you'd like to consult a Shaman?
The obesity epidemic isn't created by science, it's created by economic and food policy. The root problem is essentially the same one as with Facebook: scientific information gets crowded out because people stand to profit from misinformation.
Seriously, what alternative to science are you suggesting? Political populism? Let a bunch of outrage-addicted conspiracy theory junkies determine the truth with no regard to whether it matches reality? Do you really think there's an alternative system that better arrives at the truth than making and checking your predictions against reality?
Ah, yes. I believe you are referring to the CDC.