Ouch, I think nobody will like the answer to this.
It's just my impression, obviously, because I haven't done any formal research on this, but looks like the actual experts know how much they know and how much they don't know, and were quite fine since the start.
Also, every single channel that turns their opinions into advice or policy is noisy by an absurd level. So much that what experts think isn't even relevant to predict their results.
That first advice about masks, when every expert expected them to work was a bit damning but not all of the problem.
Have you noticed that the public still doesn't know that surface cleaning isn't relevant? Or that masks on open spaces were deemed essential until the policy just shifted to agree with the public actions, without the gained expertise being used at all? (They are useful in crowds, and useless outside of one.) Or that ventilation is essential in closed spaces?
But it didn't stop on that. There was just no useful communication of how crowd immunity worked, just some shit from the crazy "let's kill people" ones, and how it related to vaccines. The result is that the public was surprised by it going down when it did, and in a larger way by the shape of the omicron spread.
And on the subject of vaccines, there was no communication at all about the safety of them... what is unsettling, because they are safe to a nearly absurd level (all the ones used on the West, including the one that got suspended everywhere due to unexpected risks.)
Overall, if we had the same pandemic again, the public would be none the wise on how to protect themselves, or what expect from it. No information reaches the people, ever.
It's just my impression, obviously, because I haven't done any formal research on this, but looks like the actual experts know how much they know and how much they don't know, and were quite fine since the start.
Also, every single channel that turns their opinions into advice or policy is noisy by an absurd level. So much that what experts think isn't even relevant to predict their results.