[u32480932048]

I think you've nailed it exactly, and I've saved this comment to my "COVID Stupidity" Zotero collection for later.

The parent is also certainly on to something with the Cluster B's and those pesky "ideologically intolerable fact[s]", I'm just not sure it's so one-sided.

The entire thing was ideology first, science second, to the point of science worship. Many people with a reasonable grasp on science were labeled as heretics simply for asking questions or talking about anything that suggested masks/vaccines weren't 100.00% effective with 0.00% downside. Remember Faucisexuals? Yikes.

As someone said, we need to stop "believing" in science (or not) and start "understanding" it.