i guess you were lucky enough not to have to watch someone close to you die from it then.
I remember seeing an epidemiologist near the beginning who was saying that normally people don't listen at all when they talk about these kinds of things and so they sound the alarm loudly. This time people listened and he was warning everyone that an overreaction would kill more people. He probably got kicked off everything for "disinformation."
That seems a bit convenient at this point doesn't it?
There is some truth the the idea that our culture is more attuned to fear than it used to be and that politicians are more adept at exploiting that. You should be more surprised when politicians don't stoke fears and panic for their own purposes.