[mtVessel]

What do you imagine all that "exploitation" was about? Which "power-hungry individuals" benefited, and how? Everyone ended up with loved ones sick and dead. The governors and mayors who implemented mandates did so knowing it would wreck their economies. Who would have benefited from exaggerating (or manufacturing) this crisis?

[spookthesunset]

Nobody benefited from this crisis. Everybody was doing what they were incentivized to do. The problem is those incentives caused a massive overreaction with far reaching societal consequences.