On the other hand many people (I can think of a number of them from my personal circle of acquaintances alone) learned to be terrified of the virus to a wholly unreasonable and panicked degree that doesn't even let them rationally consider risks vs. benefits in going out for a bit of exercise or to buy needed groceries.

This happened because of the news, frequently reporting tentative theories and information about worse case scenarios or extremes as if both were given and much more common things.

Just one example: A piece of recent WaPo reporting whose headline very clearly implied that a whole wave of deaths among young children was being caused by "strange symptoms" of COVID.

Then when one actually read the piece, a slow admission that they were talking about only a very small number of cases out of thousands of pediatric COVID cases.

This is just one example, and considering how many users of social media don't even bother to read news pieces, instead simply sharing them among their friends because the titles sounded scary, it's irresponsible nonsense for a major news outlet to phrase its headlines with so much hyperbole.