I agree with this as well, but it's not necessarily mutually exclusive with what the parent comment said. For the average joe, the right opinion for most medical questions is "I'm not sure".
It looks to me that Americans misplaced (until omicron came along) their fear of covid from mid 2022 and chose to kick it around as part of the political football that is partisan politics eg starting with that bikers convention and carrying on with the BLM movement through summer 2020.
Humans are quite bad at evaluating low risks, comparing low risks, and balancing individual freedoms vs group good. The default position of most people was that authorities should use force to make everyone conform to one position.
Truthfulness, knowledge of statistics, and the ability to change positions based on new incoming information were severely lacking. Most people picked a team and fought for it relentlessly.