I agree about the engineering failure, but I'm not sure if mass hysteria is the right term. It was messier than that, we also saw a few leaders chilling out too much too early. My favorite: https://twitter.com/billdeblasio/status/1234648718714036229

And if anything, governments have been too relaxed about the origin of the pandemic (which has now officially killed 6 million!), while panicking about other details.