Before an actual pandemic, that may be somewhat true. although some measures are blatantly counterproductive, e.g https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/13/boris-johnso...
An actual disaster though, is a "can't fake it" test of disaster preparedness.
So you agree with what I said here prior evaluations were overtaken by events? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27290252