Because we didn't have a natural consensus derived from data presented by thousands of experts. We had talking points from a very few select government institutions that was sold as if it had come from thousands of experts.

And the way we know this didn't come from thousands of experts is very clear. There was no large body of scholarly work on which they pointed to any of this information. To the opposite, most of the time we were not provided any evidence, just opinion.

For there to be thousands and thousands of experts to come to a conclusion on something new and novel it takes time and lots of work, and not just from epidemiology. Also biology, medicine, virology, data science and a dozen other inter-related fields.

All you are doing is furthering the propaganda of manufactured consent. And I'm done talking with a peddler of sophistry.

We don't know that it was the best available at the time. That's the whole fucking point.

Welcome to complex systems.

I didn't use the word "conspiracy", that was you. However, if governments didn't lie to the public repeatedly throughout history and do things under false pretext there wouldn't need to be an independent media to hold them to account. Watergate, the Church Committee, and the Pentagon Papers are hard documented evidence that such events can and have happened before.

You also miss the whole point. Most research and academic works are flawed and in time proven wrong by superseding work. The falsehood on your assumption is that information that was put forward at the time was the "best". That is something we cannot determine until later, and at the time, there was very little evidence that it was. There is a lot of evidence that it was "official" (ie coming from government bodies and institutions) but those are staffed by people who are just as susceptible to being incorrect, biased, and influenced as anyone else. So to justify misslabeling dissenting and diverging opinions as "misinformation" is a disservice to society as a whole and prevents actual progress at finding the truth. It also invalidates the entire premise that academic inquiry and the scientific method are founded on.

Some of the most harmful though is that put forward by "authorized" sources who manufacture consent. US government misinformation over the years is responsible for a lot of death and atrocities in its own right.

The problem with your argument isn't that misinformation is bad, its that it's also being applied to silence opposition to the government and people in power. Which is the very purpose that the concept of free speech was intended to protect and prevent.

When something is new or novel like COVID it's improbable that any hypothesis will prove to be true long term. Hell I saw MSNBC adamantly insisting that the vaccine stops covid transmission and heavly implying it prevents contraction on multiple occasions. They don't have any flags for misinformation. The actual scientists who wrote and signed the Barrington declaration have been flatly mislabeled as "fringe" and maligned by media in coordination with US government officials which is mis and disinformation but thats not flagged or shut down.

This whole process is wrong for 2 reasons. One it's completely at odds with our societies claimed principles of liberty and liberalism, and it's impossible for us to arrive at objective truth when legitimate opposition and contradicting opinions are sweep aside which will negatively affect our ability to function as a society. But second, it's wrong because this same process of sensorship and suppression will be used against you or a cause you care about given enough time. It always is.