Yes, and that story even included very strong HN-bait like drones and surveillance! But still almost nobody was interested.
If OP is looking for early comments on the start of the pandemic from something similar to the HN community, then this one at ArsTechnica is good (Jan 9, 2020):
If OP is looking for early comments on the start of the pandemic from something similar to the HN community, then this one at ArsTechnica is good (Jan 9, 2020):
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/never-before-seen-vi...
That story also was submitted to HN, but ignored: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996996