Science doesn't mandate anything, but people do in the name of science. Covid was a perfect example of that, with so many "doctors" leading a cult (Didier Raoult from France managed to gather so many believers that he ended up having a worldwide impact which slowed down research of a vaccine globally).

Those people do believe in science, and as soon as a "scientist" tells them what they want to hear, they believe it because they think that it's science. If you define science only by the ideal scientific methodology then of course it isn't comparable to religions.