The lockdowns resulted from models that predicted 2.2 million deaths if we didn't lock down, based on an assumed fatality rate of 2.4% or higher. We now know, through the work of 1) Stanford University School of Medicine; 2) University of Southern California/L.A. County Public Health Dept.; 3) The University of Bonn in Germany; 4) Oxford University; 5) antibody studies done in Colorado, Massachusetts and New York, and 5) research printed in The Lancet that this rate is far lower than 1%, with some decent evidence it's no more lethal than the seasonal flu.
My brother postulated that Fauci, Birx, etc., know this rate doesn't justify keeping draconian lockdowns going, but to now admit that we don't need them would make them look bad and create such blowback and distrust that they are continuing with the party line.
To say that they are "professionals" at all times, the answer to that is that they are human beings with the same egos as the rest of us.