> It is real.
Unless your took samples from your body, tested them yourself, compared them to samples form before you were sick and after, all you really know is that you got sick from something. Real is in your mind, the best explanation you have for what you experienced given the information you have and can accept. Most of that information comes from external sources and you decide which ones are valid and fit your experience. But bias towards previously accepted explanations is very real and hard to counter, so your acceptance of virology, is more based on what your taught than what you experience.
If lots of people got sick from a poison that was introduced into the system without your knowledge, but the medical establishment called it a virus, most people would go with what the medical establishment said, regardless of their conflicts of interest in the whole matter.
It is hard to think outside the box, because outside the box there more crazy ideas than plausible, but once your realize your reality is as much shaped by what you have been socialized to accept as by physical hard existence, it will become much harder to accept things because a perceived 51%+ accepts something as true. So, are you sure you want the red pill (and red has nothing to so with Right, conservive, or Republican)?