It has been a repudiation of the communication layers between experts and average people, as well, which I think might be more of Aaronson's ire than experts qua experts (it's certainly more of my ire, but I don't have his platform).
A standard of "scientists dabbling in journalism to improve communication" instead of "journalists dabbling in communicating science" would likely have gone a long way to improving the civilian response and trust in experts.
There's also the factor of the "Noble Lie" dishonesty around wearing masks. I suspect intellectual-ish contrarians (like Aaronson et al) are more angered by this than the average person, but we ended up with shortages and sellouts anyways: a significant number of non-experts didn't buy into that noble lie so the experts/organizations that pushed it (not to be confused with ALL experts) burned a lot of good will to basically no effect.
ETA: I considered replying to your comment about the Harvard epidemiologists but would rather edit it in here to avoid two replies to one person: I think that's a great example of my point. The story wasn't broken by bloggers, but bloggers were more likely to be amplifying the concerned experts than our "traditional media powerhouses."
A standard of "scientists dabbling in journalism to improve communication" instead of "journalists dabbling in communicating science" would likely have gone a long way to improving the civilian response and trust in experts.
There's also the factor of the "Noble Lie" dishonesty around wearing masks. I suspect intellectual-ish contrarians (like Aaronson et al) are more angered by this than the average person, but we ended up with shortages and sellouts anyways: a significant number of non-experts didn't buy into that noble lie so the experts/organizations that pushed it (not to be confused with ALL experts) burned a lot of good will to basically no effect.
ETA: I considered replying to your comment about the Harvard epidemiologists but would rather edit it in here to avoid two replies to one person: I think that's a great example of my point. The story wasn't broken by bloggers, but bloggers were more likely to be amplifying the concerned experts than our "traditional media powerhouses."