Conservative as in cautious, not in the political sense.

When we're hit with a horrendous and novel pandemic, it's understandable that the medical community won't know how to stop its spread, so the sensible approach is to be as cautious as possible, at least until we know what we're dealing with.

That said, it can reasonably be argued that our caution went longer than was necessary and that some decisions were a bit half-assed (i.e., Newsome's closing churches while letting bars remain open).

Does that clear it up?