> as soon as a certain famous snake oil peddler starts yammering about his n-th insane theory
You mean Donald Trump or Michael R. Hamblin? Because if it's the first (as a comment downthread implies) then I must've missed a big story, and if the second, then I personally haven't heard this name before.
I'm guessing most HNers are like me: drawn to interesting ideas that seem to make sense on the surface. Here, UV light is a known and powerful disinfectant (and seemingly very much underused in this pandemic), ionizing radiation is commonly used in medicine, and applying it as a blood filter sounds like a plausible idea - so overall, sounds like a compelling reason to check out the article and the comment section.