The vast majority of published scientific progress is completely devoid of value outside their specific field of study, and those in their specific field of study know where to look for it and are(?) giving its due value.
If anything I'd prefer less interest of the general public on specific papers because the way it ends up is with people misunderstanding it to fit whatever the journalist/redditor that peddled it wanted it to mean, maliciously or not.
They only get noticed by the general public once some media person sees it, misunderstands the point, gives it a clickbaity title and sells it for clicks.
I‘d wager that the general public can’t name three scientific journals on average. In Germany COV19 sure helped to get some insights from public persons regarding pre print and review processes. However, even friends that have done their Bachelors don’t know too much about publishing. It basically begins with your own career in academia that you know how journals and academic publishing „works“ but outside of that no one really cares.
Basically every scientific progress which gets published on peer reviewed journals (a lot of them open). Some books also are online.