>Belief that the COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax – that its severity was exaggerated or that the virus was deliberately released for sinister reasons – functions a

>Belief that the COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax – that its severity was exaggerated or that the virus was deliberately released for sinister reasons – functions as a “gateway” to believing in conspiracy theories generally, new research has found. The severity absolutely was exaggerated. Covid near the beginning was 'as bad as or worse than the spanish flu' and we all had to isolate to our homes or else die. Stores had to close, people had to become unemployed. >7% mortality rate regardless of the person's health status. These we now know were all false. There was pictures of chinese doctors(Dr. Yi Fan and Dr. Hu Weifeng,) turning black/blue and then dying of covid. There was pictures of people on massive respirator machines and we ran out of respirators. Precipitating folks like Prusa to 3d print respirators. In reality these were all false. Yet for some reason when people list out the 'misinformation' of covid. They always seem to exclude any cases where the misinformation was an exaggeration. Doing this is a cost, a cost to your reputation. This reality comes at a cost to those in public health. If you could jump in a tardis and do the correct thing. When fighting misinformation and applying censorship, you have to do it on both sides. Since you lack a tardis, you have to address the misinformation on your side. Not denying there was any misinformation on your side.