My understanding is that this same thing happened near the end of the Spanish flu when people were fed up with the utter nonsense. We need more of this here in the USA.

It must be nice to be a fearmonger; you literally cannot lose. If you swear there will be an uptick in cases and deaths, and there is, then you were right. But if there were not an uptick, you could say "I was erring on the side of caution. This is a serious and severe pandemic" and your reputation would be untarnished.