"The official’s unwillingness to answer questions from the press or even acknowledge the pandemic’s inevitability meant that citizens would look elsewhere for answers, and probably find a lot of bad ones...
...Instead of taking the lead in providing credible information he instantly fell behind the pace of events. He would find it almost impossible to get ahead of them again. He had, in short, shirked his duty to the public, risking countless lives."
smithsonianmag.com/history/journa…
smithsonianmag.com/history/journa…
And here is what we have in this moment of crisis, a moment when accurate information is critical, and we’re concurrently being attacked by hostile foreign intelligence/actors with disinformation. 
