But I also think it's important to remember there are people who are trained to understand what's going on and they dedicate their full time jobs to it. If my conclusion is different than theirs, I should assume I'm wrong and do some more research to understand why.
The issues here are three.
Firstly, they might be experts in X, but not experts in Y. And in a society of millions of people, what you do to X will also affect Y. Governing for the public good is not about maximising things for X or Y, but balancing the two. But when the media is screaming about X, you may find that Y is entirely ignored.
As a non-covid example from Australia, a convicted violent criminal was out on parole. While out, he raped and murdered a woman, Jill Meagher. As she was an attractive middle-class woman, this occasioned much distress, and tens of thousands marched, demanding the government tighten up parole laws. So the government tightened up parole laws considerably. This has led to more aboriginal people in custody, which - without any particular malice or even incompetence from the police - has also led to more aboriginal people
die in custody. And so tens of thousands march once more, demanding (among other things) the government loosen up parole laws.
By focusing on improving X, they made Y worse. Now, if X has become a big issue in the media and public discourse, this is unfortunately inevitable. The fact that someone is an expert in X is, then, irrelevant - we need experts in X
and Y, so we can balance these considerations.
Secondly, we do not use only expertise to judge things when we're talking about the public good. If we did there would be no need for a free press or elections. Nor would we even have the requirement of consent for medical procedures. Just appoint some experts to handle things. But we don't do that, because when weighing X against Y, we decide which holds greater weight based on our personal and ideological values, our cultural history and so on. If I as an individual get a say in (for example) whether or not I am given chemo for liver cancer, should the general public not get a say in the public health measures to control a communicable respiratory disease?
Lastly, experts disagree with each-other. Often. For example, here in Australia the Chief Health Officer of Victoria advised widespread harsh long-term lockdowns. That of New South Wales did not. The Infection Control Group of the Commonwealth does not believe that aerosol transmission is a significant vector for the virus, the CHO of Victoria does.
When experts disagree, which one should we believe?
The deference to experts is intellectually lazy and profoundly anti-democratic.