[howlgarnish]

There are two sides to intellectual curiosity at HN: the article itself, and the opinions of the HN commentariat. In this case, I agree that the news itself isn't particularly intellectually gratifying, but this is seismically important news with many potential non-obvious ramifications, and I would be quite interesting in seeing those HN opinions that aren't just "lol die pumpkin".

For comparison, the HN story announcing that Trump was chosen as president-elect had 1800 upvotes and 2200 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12907201

[onecommentman]

Currently the subreddit Coronavirus for general COVID news has a post with the information and over 3000 comments. The subreddit COVID-19, dedicated to the science and medicine side of things with tight moderation, has no posting. There is current precedent for keeping it out. Personally, I choose to visit the COVID-19 subreddit for the same reasons I visit HN.