No One Trusts Public Health Experts Anymore, and It's All Their Fault | Amy Curtis, Townhall I worked at a hospital in the early months of 2020, before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, and I will go to my grave believing I actually had COVID in January of that year. My entire unit was wiped out by 'Influenza Harry,' the boyfriend of a patient hospitalized for flu who would wander around the floor sharing the bug with the rest of us. I had the flu in early January, recovered, and went back to work. But at the end of the month, I started developing a wicked cough whenever I would talk or laugh, I'd spike a fever, and it was hard to take a deep breath. I was told it was the residual impacts of the flu, and it went away on its own. We all know what happened in March of that year. As governments jumped at the chance to keep us home, and Karens shone by yelling at us to follow the stupid arrows in the grocery store aisles, I was one of many who issued a stark warning: so-called public health experts were dynamiting their credibility for a highly survivable virus, and — if a nasty one actually came along — public compliance would be nil. Now, with Ebola raging in the Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan, people are warning we may have another pandemic on our hands and that people won't comply with public health measures. If Ebola becomes a pandemic, it will be in no small part because millions of people now view public health measures as oppression rather than the most basic infrastructure of a functioning and sustainable civilization. — Michael Moran | APC Injury (@michaelmoran) May 21, 2026 This is all self-inflicted and utterly preventable. Public health is built on public trust. Trust requires open and honest communication. Long before COVID hit, the Left had diminished public trust by saying that anything they didn't like was mis/disinformation, censoring social media, and silencing critics in the mainstream media. If you said something that was once considered a universal truth and basic knowledge — like there are only two genders — you were labeled a 'transphobe' and 'anti-science.' You risked losing your job for believing and saying, "No, some women do not have penises." Yes, there was some wacky stuff out there, but the solution to addressing the outlandish claims is to counter them with factual evidence. You're not trying to convert the true believers, but you're trying to sway the people in the middle to your side. When your first response to a ridiculous claim is to silence the person making it, the rest of us are going to wonder what your true motives are. It was, ironically, social media that helped deal a fatal blow to public health. As I said, I was working as a nurse. My unit was emptied, reserved as an ICU overflow for the influx of critical patients were were supposed to get. For months, that unit didn't see a single patient. The staff was floated to different floors. I worked Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and some weekends I was on a different unit each shift. My colleagues, like so many around the country, even engaged in those embarrassing TikTok dances that repeatedly went viral in 2020. I refused. It was beneath the profession and revealed that healthcare workers weren't drowning in dying patients. It was also insulting to those who did die from COVID, especially for the survivors who couldn't say goodbye. My father was hospitalized during that time with cellulitis that evolved into sepsis, which evolved into renal failure. The only reason I was able to see him is because he was in my hospital. He would have been utterly alone otherwise. And when it was clear he was dying, I brought him home with home hospice so he wouldn't die alone, as so many others had. During the week he was at home, the admission nurse saw him once. An aide came, once. And a nurse came the morning he died to pronounce him. The rest of the time, I was managing his care. That was fine because I knew what I was doing, but the physical drain left me battling mono for weeks afterwards. But many families were left alone to navigate the dying process because COVID policies kept nurses at home. Unless they were dancing on TikTok, that is. That summer, we also watched George Floyd get three funerals and BLM rioters burn up cities. Those events were allowed because COVID knows that racism is a real virus, too, it seems. But if you wanted your kids to return to school, didn't want to wear a useless mask in public or — heaven forbid — didn't want to try an experimental vaccine, you were the very embodiment of evil. All for a virus with a 99 percent survivability rate. The sensible approach to COVID would have been to isolate seniors and those with comorbidities that made them high risk (e.g. heart disease, obesity, chronic respiratory illnesses), encourage the rest of us to get sunshine and exercise, and to keep our kids in school and our lives as normal as possible. But no. It was 'two weeks to flatten the curve.' Which turned into a month. Then another month. Then another month. If some Leftists had their way, we'd still be shut in our homes, wearing masks, and on our 17th booster shot. I doubt Ebola will become a pandemic. It is transmitted by touching the bodily fluids of infected individuals, which is something most of us won't encounter. That is, however, a good reminder to wash your hands properly and frequently, though. If it does blow up, I will take precautions, not because the government tells me to, but because it makes sense. Others will likely do the same. But we will not listen to the public health experts who made our lives a living hell for months on end, and are just itching to do it again. They had a chance, and they blew it. Now that trust is gone and there is nothing that will bring it back. townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-cu…