The politicians (and more directly, their corporate sponsors) stoked that opinion. It didn't come from nowhere. From day 1 of the pandemic the reactionary media ecosystem would not shut the fuck up for even a MOMENT about the unnecessary "draconian" "authoritarian" lockdowns and how bad they were. Why? Because said corporate masters were losing shitloads of money because it was dangerous for customers to go shopping, and it was even more dangerous for people to go to work. But we can't possibly pump the brakes on the economy, even for a moment! Lines have to go up, no matter how many millions of lives it costed.

Yes, the people demanded it, but that demand itself was a created thing. Sure we would've had our vaccine deniers and other assorted cranks, we always have and will, but we had an entire sector of the mass media pouring gasoline on that fire as fast as they fucking could to manage exactly what fucking happened.

And like, even if you want to say the above is tinfoil hat shit: Okay, then the Governments job in this situation would be to defer to experts and figure out public policies that would keep people safe. Which we did, kind of, for awhile. But like if public opinion is screeching so loud for lockdowns to end, the government should fucking say NO. That's their JOB.