[briHass]

I agree with your broader point, but this statement strikes me as odd:

> "I recall seeing a lot of articles indicating that there was a surge of young people in ER and articles showing obituaries of young people in order to hammer home the message that it was a real danger to them too. The problem is the official statistics didn't back that message up to the degree that it needed to, so you had this big disconnect that was exploited heavily by conspiracy theorists. "

That seems like whitewashed phrasing for what was, at best, manipulation and at worst, outright lies. The 'official statistics' were hidden from everyone, and particularly the young, because telling someone under 40 that their IFR for COVID was only about 5-10X what it is for the flu just isn't that scary.