Fear drove the whole thing. People fell for it, because of the hyped up fear.
Agree. To deliberately ramp up that level of fear in people was/is criminal.
Exactly. And they artificially inflated the fear by refusing to permit effective early treatments that were near miraculous in other countries, driving up the body count. How many people died needlessly?
When combined with widespread ignorance, fear is the most effective way to get people to voluntarily -- if not willingly -- surrender even their unalienable rights to ever-present, self-serving politicians and, especially, to unelected bureaucrats ... then live to regret doing so.