alt Hacker NewsMost people don't think COVID-19 was/is "fake" per se. Most people just think the situation was overblown.
It is a sickness most analogous to the common cold or flu. Both of which suck, both of which you SHOULD self-isolate for, although the conditions, spread and death toll is effectively the same (or lesser) than that of the cold or flu. Which no matter how you spin it, the Global restrictions were too harsh.
The majority of people believe something fake about Covid [1]. While the number of people who think it was a hoax or otherwsise completely fake is pretty low, I've seen figures that it was as high as 13% in the early pandemic, which is millions of people.
We still have people who believe in ivermectin, don't believe in vaccines and somehow still think the vaccine is more dangerous despite there being at least 7 million Covid deaths recorded and, well, 7 million fewer vaccine deaths.
The health and hospital system was in total collapse. The lockdowns helped slow the spread. Were it not for that, many more would've died. Even so, we had not enough ventilators such that doctors and nurses essentially had to choose who lived and who died. The collective trauma on healthcare workers is something we'll be dealing with for years.
What really scares me is how otherwise educated people can fall for the misinformation and absolutely nothing will convince them otherwise. It's basically a mind virus with no cure.
[1]: https://www.kff.org/health-information-trust/covid-19-misinf...