I don't believe anyone thinks the covid virus is a hoax.  That would be patently ridiculous.  What the media seems hell bent on preventing is perspective.  According to the CDC's own site:  The study was based on records from 1979 to 2001 from about 500 hospitals across the United States. The study concluded that, on average, more than 200,000 people in the United States are hospitalized each year for respiratory and heart conditions illnesses associated with influenza virus infections.

That's on average.  Every year.  And I tried to get an answer from google to this question:  how many people have been hospitalized in the U.S. due to covid.  I couldn't get an answer.  I finally found a "Health Leaders" website (no idea how legit this is) that has a page with the headline "We Still Don't Know How Many People are in the Hospital with Covid-19."  It goes on to explain each state ...maybe even each hospital...has its own way of reporting the figures.  (That was as of 4/9/20)  Flu is not a joke or a hoax.  If you've ever had a Type A flu virus (or covid) you know how devastating and horrid it is and easy to see why people die from it.  But to shut down a world economy?  We'll never know if this was over-reaction or not.  No way TO know.  However, the fact is this virus will spread and it will still kill but as the days go by, it will fade, just like swine flu and just like Legionnaires disease, both bugs that are still around but not in the news anymore.  (And whatever happened to bird flu, anyway?) 

I feel manipulated.  Don't like it.