Yeah, anyone who's been following the way the virus spreads will have seen how countries will be declared success stories that beat the virus, and then a couple of months later get an enormous surge. Or we'll be told that a country is on the brink of collapse, but then the wave breaks and the cases suddenly start dropping. Just to give one example, here's how Czechia was presented in the summer of 2020[1]:

> Anyone interested in a real world case study on the extraordinary effectiveness of face masks in suppressing the spread of the coronavirus need look no farther than Prague. In this capital city of 1.3 million, among the first in Europe to decree mandatory universal mask-wearing almost four months ago, life has now returned to normal.

Most of Europe in general was presented as having beat COVID before the late summer surge.

No matter what happens, people say it proves their preconceived beliefs correct. "This country is doing better? Well, that's simply because they did [THING I LIKE]. Now it's doing worse? It must be because they're not doing [OTHER THING I LIKE]."

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/14/how-czech-...