Well, I think people do have reason to be skeptical of the governments and the mainstream media. First off all, covid currently has about 250 million cases worldwide and 5 million deaths worldwide, the Spanish Flu from 1918 to 1920 has had 500 million cases worldwide and 50 million deaths worldwide so the notion that covid is the "deadliest virus in history" is bullshit. Also many public health units are being misleading, people who are in the hospital for things like cancer, heart disease and other non-covid illnesses happen to be tested positive for covid and are mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic and are inaccurately counted as "covid hospitalizations" even though covid is not actually the reason why the patient is in hospital: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/14/far-left-atlantic-admits-coronavirus-hospitalizations-misleading-roughly-half-not-due-to-infection-or-severe-illness/
I will tell you what is extending the pandemic, the government.