Yeah iirc i was reading about a suspected outbreak of a new disease in China late 2019, I told my coworkers about it too and wondered how it hadn't garnered more attention, or if I had just watched too many bio-horror flicks, or fallen for clickbait-y fear mongering. I never suspected it's impact would have the scale it did, especially after the Ebola containment went so smooth.
If a tree falls and HN doesn't post it, did it ever happen?
I was not on HN prior to covid. The early news I read was likely the plague scare[0], but I definitely read the reuters article[1] when it came out which prompted me to talk to my coworkers about it. I was not sounding any alarms though, more like "check this out..." in the lunchroom.