No, it really hasn't. Sweeping the problem under the rug has already resulted in at least 150 deaths, which could have been prevented by allowing pilots to seek mental health care.
Looking at the list of crashes >200 deaths since 2010, it seems to be about 50% pilot suicide.
It is hard for some people to have the emotional maturity to understand this, but we can't fucking prevent every fucking death. We will all fucking die sooner or later, too.
You have absolutely no objective reason to suppose that changing this policy would have prevented this, not to mention the risk of making things worse.
I can keep an old decrepit rich guy living a miserable life for some more 6 months at the same cost that would take to me to improve the life expectancy of some 100 poor babies a few decades.
I can try save a bunch of fat very-sick boomers from a respiratory infection at the cost of causing an economic crisis that will completely fuck a lot of young people too for decades ahead. Was it fucking worth?
In this case, "lots" is "anything more than once a month" because footage of the above is addictive to anyone trying to make money from the news. Look at how many flights there are a day. How high can the crash rate be until those pictures are seared into our eyeballs?
It's actually funny you bring up COVID, because I agree with you that the restrictions were... not good. I also think that the FAA could use a lighter touch on just about everything, EXCEPT the level of safety it requires from Part 121 operators.