One of the first things Trump said about SARS-CoV-2 is that it was a 'Democratic' 'hoax.'

How do you focus on educating against that, when any contradiction of Trump will be seen by his followers as a purely political act?

People wouldn't believe the virus is hoax if they hadn't been told it was a hoax, and that's absolutely not a 'both sides bad' issue.

> For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan, you are basically encouraging his base to resist whatever needs to be done (wear masks).

So if his plan was to drink bleach, we should say "yeah that sounds good" because we don't want to alienate his fans?

You can see a lot about someone's political leanings by where they place the blame for turning an issue political.

To state the obvious counter, Trump has politicized mask wearing by setting an example of refusing to wear one, and resisting being seen taking any personal virus precautions at all.

>we have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into political one. For example, by criticizing Trump on his COVID-19 plan

Huh? "We" have made a very big mistake by turning this issue into a political one. However, the mistake was in failing to criticize Trump from the very beginning. Twitter should have canceled his account when he put out that tweet calling COVID a hoax (in March?). Corporate America should have stood up in a united fashion and put out a pro-mask/anti-Trump message. Every health care administer should have put out PR immediately debunking Trump's nonsense. The idea that we should have avoided criticizing the guy who stupidly made this thing political in the first place is just crazy to me.