Too bad that they cannot just admit that they were wrong. I have had to do that a couple of times. Once one admit one's errors others tend to forgive them. What is unforgivable is maintaining false beliefs long after one was shown to be wrong.
About ten years ago, or more, I used to debate against AGW. I realized that I was wrong eventually. Thanks largely due to Lord Monckton. When one openly stated "I was wrong" there was no heckling.
The experts were right about Covid fairly early on. Yes, there were errors here and there, but it was a new virus. That was to be expected. And priorities changed. When it came to surgical masks those the limited supply meant that they had to recommend against them for the general population. Nuance is quite often lost on deniers and extremists as well. And for some it was "No worse than the flu" or at least not much worse. Yet there are a very significant number of people where that is not true. Even with the limited infection rate that we have had it is still the number one cause of death right now. Just think how bad it would have been without any controls at all. Hospitals would have been overwhelmed a long time ago and many that would have survived in a hospital would have died. I would not be surprised if the casualties were ten times what we see now.