It all sounds very wise, especially in hindsight. Indeed COVID overreaction was epic, it fast-forwarded imminent financial trainwreck arguably by a decade, it cost us a lot of freedom, some of which aren't coming back, but most importantly it crippled human spirit and ruined many lives. It was a textbook fuck up and I hope it will be studied by future generations and lessons will be learnt.

But. I wouldn't generalize like you did. The most fearful are usually those who survive, see, fear is our strongest emotion for a reason: Monkeys yell to warn their pack when they notice a snake or an eagle approaching(btw they have different yells for those) and if some decides to ignore the warning yell - they are less likely to survive and reproduce. It's only safe to ignore the yell when you're absolutely sure you're safe. In case of COVID you can't, unless you are a virus expert, can fully trust your judgment and spot the false alarm in time. There are too few of us who did.

The nature gave us no other choice than to flee.

This was the perfect storm of panic and it got used by the powers to gain more power. As disgusting as it is, I personally don't see how we could react to such things in the future differently. Yet. Like I said, I hope we learn the lesson.

We can argue which of these two cost more lives:

1. OMG!!! Danger!!! Run!!!

2. No worries, it's OK, its nothing.