In the beginning, coronavirus denialism was easy. When widespread American deaths were still confined to the rising slopes of epidemiological models, skeptics could dismiss them as alarmist predictions. That included the nation’s most prominent coronavirus truther: “Just stay calm,” Donald Trump said on March 10, “it will go away.” Two months later, as the official death count pushes above 70,000, this approach is obsolete. The future has happened, so now it’s time to question the recent past.
On Wednesday, Axios reported that Trump has been complaining privately that official Covid-19 death numbers are inflated. According to an anonymous administration official, the president will soon begin to share this idea in public. Fox News, perhaps the most trusted source of information for the president and his followers, has already pushed the “deaths are exaggerated” theory, despite the fact that official death counts almost certainly understate the true death toll, because many people are dying, often at home, without being tested. So get ready for the Covid-19 information war to open a new front.
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Source: As Deaths Mount, Trump’s Disinformation Strategy Will Adapt | WIRED