Indeed, those powers (more at the public campaign end of CDC than FDA, IMO, and then many others) seemed to completely miss that once Bite Me was in, at least 1/3 of the population would from non-health issues alone be highly dubious of them, and then said powers seemed to do everything they could to worsen that.
Maybe another example of this magnitude exists, but I can think of no other country where such a high level of a “stick it...” attitude exists toward virtually anything CDC or FDA or Biden or even local health agencies would advise, even in instances where they were correct. When you have a pathogen as contagious as Delta, much less Omicron, to deal with, having 1/3 of the population in anywhere from denial to active resistance is just NOT going to work well. And that is over and above the fatigue factor that affects almost everyone in some way, with very little in the way of encouragement. (President Trump pointing out the lives saved by the vaccines is one of the few examples of solid encouragement of the public that I can find.)
Yes, the super-sophisticated people out there won’t get it that Trump was probably the most positive, constructive communicator in all of this mess.