Umm, the COVID response itself was just as much a religion as it was science. There were people walking nature trails with nobody around with their masks securely on their faces. There were requirements for people whose job was to sit in a truck's cab by themselves all day to vaccinate or lose said job. There were unnecessarily draconian shutdowns. There was uncontrolled and unaudited spending on saving nonexistent businesses and buying enough vaccines for several more years of COVID (but with expiry dates within a year).

If the harsh response to COVID had been necessary, the places that didn't do it should have died out. They did not. You simply don't hear about the Great Depopulation of Africa.

And yet you will read the above, label me a crank, and downvote this. Meaning that you are just as tribal as the people you look down upon.