UK scientific advisors on Covid plans

The UK's official government science advisors could tell ministers that their plans for dealing with Covid-19 were absurd, but they were not allowed to tell the public this — and they were used to give an air of scientific legitimacy to the absurd plans.

I think that science officials in the US are more independent than in the UK, and that this problem is less here. But it must have been difficult for an official who is in principle allowed to state per own views to the public to disagree publicly with the bully when that last was president.