Sad, you assume nobody has a soul or a conscience to go with it. When I was in the sciences I was as apolitical as could be. The science led me to what was worthy.
So now we have woven in the Corona virus outbreak. What you didn't say is that we now have BOTH the run of the mill flu, which basically disappears every spring ( not that that helps the poor folks who die from it every year) AND a new virus that we know next to nothing about in terms of epidimiology because we've not seen it in humans before. Sure, the press shapes what most folks think but we really do not know how this will play out. I say better safe than sorry.