What I remember are people going around calling it the "Chinese flu" and how unreliable Trump is in general, which probably generally delayed people's response to it. Meanwhile, you had Trump downplaying the virus the whole time, while simultaneously trying to take credit for doing something against the "not a big deal" virus.
Please tell me, what's the middle ground between magnetic arms, 5G chips and bioweapons vs mask, vaccines and social distancing?
We have a very different recollection of the events, except only one of those is backed up by actual sources. I remember pretty distinctly that “sources”, including the WHO, dismissed the virus to the point that even human-to-human transmission was questioned, until it was too late.
Here’s Axios kindly reminding readers that if they’re panicking about the coronavirus, they should be more concerned about the flu:
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-i...tes-64311582-2031-40af-8ec3-9ff68341d4f3.html
The Daily Beast coming at you with a similar brain dead take, although they seem to have “updated” it later, by which I mean “wiping egg off their face”:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/flu-not-coronavirus-is-the-virus-killing-us-kids-like-luca-calanni
A lot of the articles from more mainstream publications were straight up deleted, but I’m sure pesky little users archived them accordingly. The comparisons to the flu didn’t start with Trump, they were started by the press, and the Internet never forgets. The people most concerned about the virus, back when it was still called “spontaneous pneumonia”, were exclusively on the “conspiracy theorist” side of the Internet, and the sole reason why they were concerned was because the Chinese government was welding people’s doors shut and at the same time, the WHO was informing the world that “there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission” and we should all chill. The containment actions taken by the Chinese government that people saw with their own eyes thanks to whistleblowers online did not match what we were being told, so doubt was a rather natural reaction. The overwhelming sentiment among the right was “they know something that they’re not telling us”, and this sentiment turned out to be correct.
As for your quip regarding medical quackery, I’m not entirely sure why you ascribe it specifically to right-wingers considering it’s historically the left that subscribes to all sorts of alternative medicine, from “healing crystals” all the way to homeopathy. Not five minutes ago in historical terms the most wealthy and densely liberal areas of America had the lowest rates of vaccination against small pox etc., comparable to South Sudan - those people are not rabid Trump supporters, they’re as blue as the open sea.
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/380252/
Regarding Trump, he took immediate action by banning travel from affected areas, he tried to prevent a national panic by downplaying the virus in speeches, but handled the situation fairly well in terms of actions taken, which is completely understandable to me. This conversation is two years out of date. You can have your own opinion on the subject, but last I checked, when banning travel, a perfectly sensible mitigation strategy, was introduced, the left responded with “that’s racist”, and with Nancy Pelosi parading across Chinatown to lick some doorknobs. I’m sorry, you might have acute amnesia, but I don’t. Maybe you weren’t clued in on what’s happening in December 2019/January 2020, but I was, and I remember the origin of “it’s just a flu, bro” very well.