I kind of disagree. In large part it's about control, but it's also preserving ego and their jobs. About half the population gobbled up the message and trusted the theatrical science and were/are shit scared really quickly. I can't blame people for being scared of a "new" disease and being careful at first. But after a while it was obvious that the measures were little more than theater, but that the gov and doctors couldn't admit that without a huge blowback (and shame). So they went along with it and found a decent escape; a magical vaccine threshold. When dealing with politics, incompetence is quite a large driving force imo.