“People seem to think that if they can convince you everything’s going to be okay, it increases the odds that it’s actually true.”

It’s a reverse of the ol’ : “say something out loud about a bad thing and then it won’t happen”.

When something bad IS happening, say something like: It’s no big deal (or) it’s only the flu (or) get used to variants showing up regularly, no big deal”…all in the twisted attempt to make these statements true