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Well, maybe, but I'm cynical enough to believe that this was also "Massage the science until it agrees with the policy we already wanted to do in the first place": namely, economic growth be-all-end-all-ism. The politicos didn't want a hypothetical pandemic interfering with their Line Going Up. It's only in the actual advent of a pandemic that the safetyists came out of the woodwork and demanded the opposite prescription. But in both cases the "scientific consensus" was more a function of political climate than actual data, because the scientists who say what the powers that be want to hear are the ones who get funding / airtime / the ear of the Premier.
Then we should be able to find this woodwork that they came out of. I've looked for it before. It ain't there. There's no segment of the public health community that, prior to 2020, thought imprisoning the entire population of a country in their own homes in the long-term was a suitable response to anything.
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