I’m not quite sure what the author tries to convey here but it sounds like the life of a person is less important than economic stability, kids going to school and preventing depression? I thought saving life’s has the highest priority? Like we have so many regulations for safety to prevent death but when it comes to pandemics we have todo Trade off analysis?
What happened here mostly wasn't that, but rather something panicked, based on assumptions, to not losing face, to appear to be in control of the sitiution, not losing authority.
At times implemented rather totalitarian, also combined whith corruption and chronyism regarding various backroom deals in the context of procurement deals of masks and vaccines.
Also especially funny regarding the availability of masks: at first they were pronounced useless in places, because there can't be panic/uproar when there aren't enough available.
As evidenced by all the public sock-puppets in the media turning coats/going with the wind, when that situation changed, doing a sharp u-turn to influence public opinion the opposite way.