An Enemy Unseen, but not Unknown

One common description of the COVID-19 outbreak is that it's a war against an unseen enemy. The enemy is not unknown, though, coronaviruses were first described in the 1960s, and various coronavirus-related disease outbreaks have been documented. Tragically, the one person who has been tasked with the safety of all Americans refuses to acknowledge the expertise of the scientists who are fighting the outbreak- this ignorance, or simple refusal to admit he was wrong, is unforgivable:

Here's Trump saying of the coronavirus that "you can call it a flu ... I'm not sure that anybody even knows what it is." (It is not the flu.) pic.twitter.com/47Fx8ZpaF1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 27, 2020

That sentence, "you can call it a flu ... I'm not sure that anybody even knows what it is" should terrify anyone with half a brain. Trump actually has less of a handle on what needs to be done to soften the blow of the outbreak than the author of Space Raptor Butt Invasion does. Among the brainless, the magical thinking about the pandemic is absolutely horrific- the looniest of the lunatic fringe actually thinks the disease is a divine mechanism to destroy their perceived enemies. They have truly devolved into a suicide cult:

Uh oh. pic.twitter.com/iInoIhPPUm

— Travis View (@travis_view) March 28, 2020

In the face of such profound stupidity, no doubt magnified by trolls and bots run by hostile powers, how can responsible authorities get the real facts out to the public, especially when the loons believe they are the architects of the disaster? Experts know the nature of the COVID-19 outbreak, they know the strategies to use to reduce the rate of transmission, and they are being ignored or vilified by the very people who should be deferring to them.