Content yourself with this revisionism all you want, but it wasn't the scientific consensus pushing harsher restrictions, it was anti-scientific political posturing, from both the right and left. There was never scientific justification for mask mandates, or vaccine mandates, and now there is clear evidence that the mRNA vaccines have dubious efficacy and likely lead to greater adverse reactions for certain demographics, especially those that had natural immunity. Should those demographics have gone along to get along, despite unclear at best, or negative at worst, reactions to the vaccines? Obviously not- it is the height of unethical behavior to force a medical intervention that has negative health impact to the recipient. At least, it was universally agreed to be bad ethics, prior to the unbridled panic during COVID. Thankfully, there was a substantial push back from the same contrarian voices you derride, otherwise there's no way of telling how much more authoritarian things might have become.

If you truly want to reach understanding of the opposing view, try steelmanning instead of this obvious and oblivious strawman.