"The medical community," as represented in the US by Dr. Anthony Fauci, was the primary proponent of the erroneous information.
The vaccine, as was pitched to us by the medical and political communities, and people across the Internet, did not work as advertised. That's not fake news, that's fact.
If you are encouraging people to do their own research, I have two case studies: myself, and my father. Both of us were fully vax'd, both of us got COVID. My father almost died. It's entirely possible that getting the vax kept my father from dying, but I'm skeptical. There is correlation there, but no evidence of causation. Even understanding that "the plural of anecdote is not data," I know what I was told--what we were all told--about the vaccine, and that information was wrong. Period.
There are also numerous examples of potential long-term negative health effects for the current COVID vax. Again, we know it doesn't keep people from getting or spreading COVID, we know it's affecting recruiting and retention, and we know it could have severe negative long term health effects. I do not think that the current vax's downsides outweigh the good.
Whatever the initial reasons for the lockdown and mask mandate ("2 weeks to flatten the curve"), they remained in place because they were politically expedient. And they were flatly ignored when it was politically expedient. (BLM riots, celebrity performances, etc.).
I was in the Army when we were required to get the anthrax vax. The negative aspects of it outweighed the positives, and it was eventually discontinued, but not before it negatively affected many Soldiers' lives. it's time for the COVID vax to go the way of anthrax.
