Scourge of COVID exposes distrust in medicine

But in early 2020, as a new disease spread rapidly around the world, so did rumors and sometimes conflicting information regarding what to do regarding it. Individual interpretations of scientific evidence became the norm, and mistrust of medicine increased, even as COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death in the United States that year, with 350,831 recorded deaths, trailing only of heart disease and cancer.