In 2020 there’s science and The Science. The latter seems to be more religious in its application and what it means to its devotees. That makes life difficult.
Politicians, having long ago squandered their own credibility, are now working their way through someone else's. But it's not an easy partnership. Politicians, especially during an emergency, need to produce fast, clear, consistent answers; science, as I'm sure you know, is about the gradual and painstaking accumulation of knowledge, and about nuance and qualification and uncertainty and interpretation. Scientists love to be proved wrong; politicians can't stand it.