You don't need an army or even a weapon to bring a nation to it's knees.
People can be controlled by fear.
Fear is as serious a debilitating contagion as any virus.
You can be esteemed an expert, yet change your ideas on your expertise almost daily. No one will notice. You'll still be considered an expert.
During a disaster you can declare someone an "expert," parade them on national media, and fear will drive people to follow their suggestions in a cult like fashion.
When being questioned on live T.V. before an anxious nation, it's quite acceptable for an "expert" to answer most of the questions with something like, "We just don't know."
Vanity and fear do strange things to people. A surgical face mask is neither a fashion statement or a reliable means of preventing a viral infection. And when you wear it riding low so it's merely covering your chin, it's even less effective at either one of those objectives.
The millions of Chinese people you see on television wearing masks is not proof that masks help stop the transmission of the Corona virus. They've been wearing masks in China for a couple of decades now. The air pollution is so bad over there that they do that to protect their lungs.
I've discovered that every day I touch my face an average of 10,387 times. It's miraculous that I'm still alive.
It's strange that "non essential workers" were forced to stay at home. Among the groups of people who have still not returned to work are our members of the House of Representatives. We've known for years how non essential they are to our well being, but somehow that awareness has finally caught up with them.
