On the Front Line against the Pandemic of Denial

By Robin G. Jordan

The more I learn about how many Americans are reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic, the more I become convinced that the pandemic will have to grow far worse before they begin to take it with the seriousness that it warrants. On Facebook and other social media platforms a number of people are putting out all kinds of disinformation and misinformation about the pandemic, promoting the view that is not as serious as the health experts claim, that the media is exaggerating its seriousness, that it is a hoax perpetuated to deny President Trump a second term of office, that face masks do not prevent the spread of COVID-19, and so on. These individuals are using cherry-picked statistics to support their claims. What benefits they gain from what they are doing merit our attention.

A number of these individuals are contrarians, individuals who takes a contrary position or attitude to those that anyone with expertise in a particular field is likely to take. They will adopt a position and keep promoting it even though the position that they have adopted is repeatedly debunked. They are motivated by plain contrariness. They take perverse satisfaction in disagreeing with other people and annoying them.

A number of these individuals  are convinced in their own minds that the disinformation and misinformation they are spreading is the truth. They are true believers, individuals who have become strongly attached to a particular belief and who will persist in promoting it even though it may be untenable.

A few may have more sinister motives. They have connections to the intelligence agencies of a foreign power and are engaged in a campaign of disinformation to weaken the United States. By dividing the people of the United States over how they should respond to the pandemic, encouraging denial of its seriousness, and questioning the effectiveness of precautionary measures, they are endeavoring to promote the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, to create political and social instability, and to wreck the US economy. They are exploiting the gullible and the credulous and using them to disseminate their propaganda.

A number of those spreading false or inaccurate information on Facebook and other social media platforms are the unwitting stooges of these peddlers of disinformation. As every propagandist knows if you repeat a lie or half-truth enough times, it will take on a life of its own. The propagandist will not have to repeat the lie or half-truth anymore. Other people will repeat it for him.

Among those spreading disinformation and circulating misinformation are members of domestic terrorist groups and their sympathizers. They are seeking to create a social collapse that will offer them a power vacuum of which they can take an advantage.

When the president and the vice president of the United States, senior officials in their administration, state governors, and local politicians downplay the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic for economic and political reasons and even go as far as maintain that the worst of the pandemic is past, the United States has a serious problem on its hands. It is not just confronting one pandemic. It is confronting two as I have observed in a previous article. It is confronting a pandemic of denial.

The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise in a number of counties throughout the United States. With pressure from the outside as well as the inside to reopen their buildings and to hold in-person services and gatherings, America’s churches are going to become the victim of both pandemics. We have read about the church in LaGrange County, Oregon that did not comply with its state’s restrictions on large gatherings and became the epicenter of a COVID-19 outbreak. We have also read about the church in Greenbrier County, West Virginia that did follow the guidelines that it was given and became the epicenter of an outbreak. These churches fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, I suspect, because they had already fallen victim to the pandemic of denial. This pandemic affected them in different ways but it still affected them. One church ignored its state’s guidelines. The other may have been given inadequate guidelines or may have not properly implemented the guidelines that it was given.

Those who are spreading disinformation and misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms are not likely to stop unless they or someone close to them becomes seriously ill with the COVID-19 coronavirus or even dies as the result of complications related to the virus. They are not likely to be held accountable at any time for the disservice that they are doing the United States.

As long as the pandemic of denial rages out of control, the efforts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States and mitigate its effects will at best be only partially successful. One way that churches can fight the pandemic of denial is to counter the spread of this false and inaccurate information rather than giving credence to it. Churches can become clearing houses for the dissemination of accurate, reliable information on the transmission of COVID-19 coronavirus and the most effective measures for the containment of its spread and the mitigation of its effects. They can become models of social responsibility for their communities, their states, and the nation, putting the health and safety of the community first.