[jMyles]

It's possible.

I think a darker possibility also looms: that there is ongoing astroturfing across the internet in defense of what turned out to be ludicrous policies.

In real life, there seem to be so few people who stand by lockdowns in the face of all the data that's now available. Vanishingly few serious epidemiologists continue to contend that lockdowns were helpful. All five of the big five medical schools have published multiple papers concluding that lockdowns were more harmful than helpful.

So what, are these people just chronically online and uninformed? I mean, we're on HN, where there's typically a more informed and data-driven conversation. What makes this topic different?