The thing about the pandemic is that it was a rapidly evolving situation that had scientists scrambling for answers to satisfy an understandably answer-hungry public. Reporters often misunderstood what they were hearing which is how so many people came to assume that the vaccines would prevent infection when they had never been tested for that, only for efficacy against illness and death. Testing for protection against infection would have been more complicated and taken longer and time was of the essence. So the scientists were, in this case, not wrong and not lying (two very different things) but misunderstood. Thankfully many people now understand the difference between illness and infection.
None of this is to say there are not plentiful examples of scientific misconduct. But I get tired of reading people who point to the early, chaotic days of the pandemic and say, "You see? All those scientists are full of shit!" If scientists were full of shit I would not be pecking this out on a cell phone. Plus the COVID vaccines continue to do the work they were designed to do.