[uberman]

Your beliefs are yours to hold. Go ahead and believe whatever you want to believe. However, you want to claim you are a free thinker and grounded in "evidence and data". Taking that at face value, let's set Covid aside, and imagine we are asked to objectively evaluate the weight of the evidence for and against a finding.

Is it more likely that the vast majority of international experts on a subject agree and are correct about something, or is it more likely that a small minority of stalwarts speak the truth in the face of a well coordinated global conspiracy involving tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of co-conspirators?

If you feel that you should reject the overwhelming evidence in favor of a minority voice that aligns with your world view, then yes, you in fact don't believe what you have been told not to and are not in fact grounded in evidence and data.

As you say, evidence that does not align with your world view is "anecdotal" and to be rejected, sadly, demonstrating my point.