In this case, the foremost authority was so wrong that no charlatan opportunist with reach outside the “maybe I should drink bleach” set of the public did any worse than them, and a majority of the “non-authoritative” sources I consulted this year got the important facts (evidence of human-to-human spread, a long tail of very long incubation periods, difficult-to-ascertain asymptomatic carriers, asymptomatic transmission, unlikely to have been transmitted in a purely natural setting) straight as soon as information was available, while WHO was still denying these things without evidence to back up their denials.
Added to clarify: For example, if you watched Tim Pool's (political commentator, often struggles to read and understand things he's covering) podcast, he was able to tell you early this year that some reports saw the virus incubating for upward of two weeks, and transmissible during at least some of that time; and if I recall correctly, at that same moment, the WHO's official position was that there was “no evidence of human to human transmission”, a statement that would be irresponsible even if it were true at the time. While the WHO was denying early concerns that it could spread through aerosols, the same podcast was presenting the evidence for this, and cautioning people to be aware of it (but not to panic). If you ask me, this random independent podcast handled this subject so much more responsibly than the mainstream media (who were at the time saying that it was no worse than the flu, making fun of people for being concerned about it) and the WHO (who were basically advising people to ignore evidence entirely, and not take precautions, until they deemed it sufficient).