You can’t argue with fear.
One of the Bigs from a couple centuries ago said something like “arguing with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to a dead man.”
And of course nothing has changed . What has perhaps changed is the exposure of many of us to the fallacies and imbecilities which were formerly hidden from us, in most cases. If two erudite men were debating in front of an audience, neither heard what was said in the homes of the audience members later that night.
Now, they show up in Comments sections.
As is obvious, I am deeply concerned with how things are going. The questions remains: what to do about it? Speaking the truth seems to be one clear response. But to whom, and how often? At what point am I tossing pearls to swine and feeding dogs?
You cannot reason with fear or stupidity. You cannot correct them. The only possible potentially useful thing is maintaining calm, and speaking clearly, and hoping the fearful learn to listen, and the stupid learn to listen to the now calm who are slowly seeing the light. The stupid are followers, even if they generally claim not to be. To guide them somewhere else, they need to be given new paths, new rules to follow.
But when you are speaking obvious truths–for example about COVID–and people CANNOT hear you, that is fear speaking, not reason, not a sovereign mind. Until the fear is gone, rational dialogue is impossible. Your voice is twisted and muted into incomprehensibility.