Early on, a lot of people from media, government, and the medical community were saying that it wasn't worse than the flu. Then all of a sudden it was. It would be difficult to believe everyone would suddenly go "oh hey the people telling me it was no worse than the flu are now saying lock yourselves inside or the beer bug will kill your grandma." The messaging wasn't consistent from anyone with a platform at the start and that could have soured people on taking their word on it when they changed tune later on.