With all respect, I don’t believe that it’s ‘just the flu’. I think government hasn’t believed that either, regardless of the fact that some factions have co-opted it for distinctly political purposes.
I don’t think Trump would have shut us down for even two weeks without some intelligence suggesting that this was very new and ‘different’.
Trump lost his presidency when he turned the bully pulpit over to Fauci and the Scarf Lady.
The US Intelligence apparatus was in the midst of a coup d etat from Day1 so they weren’t doing him any favors