Hi Jon,
You pose good questions; allow me to address each one and then you can decide for yourself where I sit on the spectrum of 'Coronavirus is a hoax' at one end, to a 'pandemic on a par with Spanish Flu' at the other.
"What I find difficult to credit is the number of people on here determined to deny what is happening. This thing has hurtled around the world at breakneck speed from a single source Can anyone seriously believe it’s not a killer?"
I'm not in denial at all, I understand and accept fully that the virus can and does kill and in a very unpleasant manner. Although, I guess that begs the question of how one would define a virus that kills in a pleasant manner! ;-)
"Can anyone seriously believe that responsible governments have nuked their economies for no good reason?"
I think they believe they're doing it for the right reasons, but it's a knee-jerk reaction that they will soon regret and quickly realise there were - and still are - other courses of action that could - and should - have been taken to control the spread of the virus without nuking the economy.
"Can anyone seriously believe that hospitals in the hot spots are not overwhelmed?"
Personally, I've no reason to think this and am happy to accept MSM reporting.
"Can anyone seriously believe this is all some kind of hoax or media induced drama."
It's not a hoax at all. Clearly, it's an international health emergency. However, there's a big question mark as to whether it's as bad as the media make out and, certainly, they play on all the negatives and ramp up the fear at every opportunity. And that's not just bad journalism, it's irresponsible, IMO.
So, yes, there's a health emergency, but why compound the problem unnecessarily by creating an economic one as well? Anyone who says this and dares to stick their head above the parapet is roundly attacked and accused of putting lives at risk. This is plain wrong. Restricting or barring dissenting voices from having a platform puts another nail in the coffin of democracy. Even if the government are doing everything right - a perfect job if that were possible - they should still be held to account for their actions.
When all this has gone away and life returns to something approaching normal, the enquiries - of which there will be many - will begin. I expect the government will be found wanting on numerous levels. Why, as I and others on here keep saying, are they reporting all deaths of people who have the virus as dying from the disease - when this is clearly not the case and is grossly misleading as it skews the death rates? Why was the virus downgraded from HCID status just a few days before the lock down was imposed? Why are planes still landing at Heathrow from China, Italy and elsewhere and the passengers not even being temperature checked - let alone tested for the virus? Why are other scientists with views and mathematical models that differ to those provided by Prof. Neil Ferguson (such as Dr. Sunetra Gupta at Oxford University) being excluded from the debate about how best to tackle the virus? The list of questions is long and, not only are the press and the Labour party failing to ask them, they appear to be in lockstep with the government. All the while, the economy is being trashed at a rate of £3 billion per day. Per day!!! That's simply unsustainable, yet very few people are prepared to say so. It's pretty clear to me that the 'cure' is likely to be a lot deadlier than the disease and the national and personal debt we'll all be saddled with will have ramifications for decades to come.
Lastly, broadly speaking, this chap reflects my views on the whole thing quite well:
Jay Bhattacharya: Questioning Conventional Wisdom of the COVID-19 Crisis
Tim.
