Every year there are flu's, new virisus, some kind of ebola like disease that frightens the daylights out of some people. Zika was pretty bad too. Remember that one? Transmitted by mosquito. How can you stop it? You can't! You get bit by a mosquito? Yeah, I'll mail a sympathy card to your mama. Zika, like ebola, like h1n1, like bird flu, were all just “fear campaigns”. Thankfully, they weren't actually bad at all, as far as pandemics are concerned.

Look at things from a television station's perspective. They need viewers. The viewers will watch their station if there are decent shows on, and they're usually willing to watch commercials during the show without changing the channel; viewers are a passive audience. “Is the Zika virus in your area? Find out at 11.”

You just changed their entire day. Now, they have to find out what exactly Zika is. Where is it?
How do you get it?
Is it bad?
Oh, you'll tell me at 11 pm tonight?
Why do I have to wait so long? Because of advertisers?

Television stations and networks are pretty much the same. They need viewers. If their viewers are afraid, they are so much easier to control... so much easier to get them to watch the 11 pm news if there is something that may harm them or those they love and they need to know about it, right?

It only took these two parts to make the whole scam work. But a little about these parts first:

The people/viewers: must be willing to listen to what they're told and not question anything. They have been conditioned to be a passive audience and if they do step out of line, only need slight ridicule to become embarrassed and get back in line.

The television stations/networks: We must meet out bottom line and pay bills/salaries. People are sheep. They listen, we tell. We are authority until real authority says we aren't. We have the captive, passive audience that has been conditioned to not question anything we say out of fear of public ridicule. Ratings are down at the 11 pm newscast, how can we get more viewers? Scare them!

The real trouble is, everything is actually going great.
People/Viewers: we have enough food, many of us have homes, most of us have shoes. We crave and respond to excitement, we want to be entertained.

TV Station: how about a pandemic? Everyone loves the Walking Dead. Make it a reality show. That way, there is no set or production costs.

So how do you convince someone they have covid-19?
Describe a cold: fever chills shortness of breath coughing (hello all smokers) anxiousness lack of taste (hello rednecks?) aches and pains (hello everyone who works for a living)

Add to it that there is no accurate, foolproof way to prove you have it, no way to protect yourself against it either... aside from what the television stations tell you. Wear a mask! It could save grandma! Yeah, more fear. That's how you do it. And now, after 10 months of this unwarranted hysteria, guess what: covid-19 is mutating! Seriously, next season of this reality show has to be even better. What will they think of next? Find out at 11.