Will it matter ? There will just be a barrage of BS about how the numbers are fake news, and how the media is being dramatic.

We've seen this all before and it's become so predictable.

I predict the virus will persist in being unmoved by public opinion no matter how fake the news is.

With less confidence, I predict people who get sick, have friends and family get sick, and/or watch their 401k value drop 25% in a month will develop antibodies to certain types of fake news.

>With less confidence, I predict people who get sick, have friends and family get sick, and/or watch their 401k value drop 25% in a month will develop antibodies to certain types of fake news.

With 100% confidence, I predict those people will use all of the things you mention there to further increase the political divide and entrench their already solidified world and political views.

Probably, but eventually something is going to break because reality doesn't care about peoples' political views or worldviews.

I honestly think you're underestimating just how stubborn and short-sighted people are/can be.

No, I don't think so. People can be extremely stubborn, yes, but sooner or later, reality is going to force them to make a change. No amount of stubbornness can change the laws of physics. Note that I am not claiming that things will get better for these stubborn people, in fact I'm claiming that things will get much, much worse for them when reality gives them a wake-up call, and there will be nothing they can do about it at that point because it'll be too late to fix things.

The right-wing media is already telling people that it's a bioweapon from China that is being used to attack the United States. Anyone saying differently will be attacked as a deep-state conspirator.

It's practically written in stone at this point.

It will matter, because with a ~2% fatality rate, everyone will know someone who has died of the corona virus.

That's a bit more influential than a liked facebook post with false numbers.

It's different when it's personal. It's easy to ignore talking heads on TV, because they're talking heads on TV. If you personally watch a parent die from coronavirus, there is no amount of spin that will erase that.

Unfortunately I don't think it is any different. Parents have watched their children die from preventable diseases because they decided against vaccination and they still came out believing that they did the right thing.

People will just double down. The conspiracy will be that it's just an attempt by the government to get you to vaccinate or something.

Many anti-vaxxers reconsider and become staunch pro-vaccine activists when it's their own kids who get sick from preventable diseases:

https://nypost.com/2016/09/20/i-was-an-anti-vax-crackpot-unt...

https://www.self.com/story/from-anti-to-pro-vaccine

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/i-used-to...

Well I know 2 faimilies in PR that personally had deaths related to hurricane... and it didn't stop WH to say it was lie and they don't exist.

I think you undervalue this administration ability to spin. Did you watch President speech yesterday? Everything is wonderful, everything is great and Mike Pence in charge (with at best questionable history of handling crisises in his own state). If you believe we will have real death tolls from Corona and yet Trump will not spin it that into some form of good news (because more haven't died for example?) you haven't paid attention to politics long enough, I'm afraid.

I'm sorry if this sounds really callous, but this virus (like most flu-like diseases) is going to mostly kill elderly people and others in very poor health. The "side" that voted for Trump is probably going to be hit harder by this virus.

I don't like Trump.

But pretending there wasn't problems with Clinton isn't going to help.

Trump would never have won against Obama for example, but against someone who sh#ts on their core voter base even he had a chance and now Republicans seems to be defending his every move like soccer fans defending their favorite team in spite of all their problems.

(Oh, and the Democrats keep defending Hillary despite all her craziness.)

But the media has been dramatic about many topics, the media has cried wolf many times. This isn't entirely everyone else's fault.

Absolutely. Some 3,500 american citizens died during last PR hurricane devastation and that was barely covered in media. WH said its fake numbers and its not even 100 people that died. Trump is a genius at spinning things, so I would imagine if someone dies from Corona, it will be "fake news".