If COVID had been obviously not a threat, I mean, more obvious than spherical earth, we would have gotten back to business as usually.

If it was way, way deadly, like these things occasionally are (like the honey badger...) People would have acted productively and pulled out all the stops to fight the horrific threat that is "super deadly contagious pathogen".

Between the two, there's a sweet spot. If it's just right, a virus can just cause a bunch of general chaos and pointless burning of value. Could a virus leverage such a fault. Betcha. Even a dumb virus. The contagious part can certainly take advantage of this blind spot. Deadly, that's more a roll of the dice.