I've looked at the timeline and edit history of Is COVID-19 more dangerous than typical annual coronavirus variants? which has 4K views presently, but I see no HNQ note anywhere. So what explains the high view count on this question? (External links?)
Even more interestingly Can heat cure COVID-19, the common flu and the common cold? supposedly has 10K views, despite not being HNQ'd either, and only having one real answer. No bounty was added to that question, unlike the first question I mentioned.
So, I have a feeling there might be bug at play here, overreporting the view count. Alternatively, it's the HNQ status that's being incorrectly reported.