I think the problem lies (and has since the beginning) in the idea of "insisting." Since there was so much conflicting be thrown around early on, strong suggestions to wear masks, rather than mandates, would like have been more successful, JMOO.
We're still having large conflicts in information and in things like whether the death toll is accurate, inflated, or under-reported. I think it's going to be years before researchers are able to sort all of this out.
For example, my sister is a national Hospice nurse and she explained that many Hospice patients are being counted as Covid deaths--and most of the time they did test positive for Covid--but normally whatever put them on Hospice care to begin with would be counted. Such as CHF. Someone with advanced CHF would likely succumb to the flu, but the flu did not start the "chain of events" so (in normal times), the person would still be counted as a death from CHF. It's different now, because even if the person has CHF but tests positive for Covid, they will be counted as a Covid death.
Keep in mind that high number of Hospice patients have died and tested positive for Covid. But also remember that if they tested positive for the virus, they did not receive any treatment for it. When they entered Hospice, they agreed to only palliative care.
Because of that, I can see researchers in the next few years going back and changing the count based on the what started the "chain of events" as is the common way of recording the deaths of Hospice patients.