I disagree with your last few sentences. We really don’t have infinite resources to spend doing ineffective covid interventions. For example, If the evidence strongly supports that finite transmission is rare that influences my behavior. If the evidence strongly suggests immunity does exist, that changes at least my stock portfolio. We shouldn’t overstate our certainty about complicated issues but it is useful. For example, understanding transmission influenced me not to go to the protests (people packed together chanting high transmission risk) but to start playing frisbee outdoors (fomite in sun low transmission risk).
Part of the problem was revealed by the “we have no immunity until it is proven for this specific strain” articles. A lot of public health info sources are too frequentist, so with limited info they prefer to say nothing. So a little Bayesian reference class and updating can go a long way.
I couldn’t find a place for this thought in the piece, but I don’t expect this scenario to play out. The U.S. has significant leverage over the IRGC from the bombing campaign. Regardless of what Iran’s leadership says, they do not enjoy being bombed. This probably ends with a deal where America stops bombing in exchange for opening the strait, if the strait is not already opened directly.