the difference now is that we have practically no limit on the amount and speed of information, such that we can generate fear and garner complicity much quicker. had we not had such a consolidated mediopolitical machine, the mean/median response probably would have been to treat covid like a serious flu: trying not to get it, but not generally panicking over it and going about our business more-or-less as usual, as happened in most places for the spanish flu 100 years ago.

we should have focused our mitigation efforts only on the immune deficient (elderly, obese, other diseases, etc.), not everyone, as the optimal approach.