I agree with you, I didn't think it was near as bad as it was portrayed. People most definitely died, but I think the number of infections were inflated. In fact, I can near absolutely state infection numbers were inflated. I was more or less in the middle of that part. Not my department, but at the lab I work at was the main testing location for the state. The section that was doing COVID testing at the time was instructed to report any test that came back as inconclusive as positive. The method they were using was extensively tested with controls before it going live. On it's best day it was only 60% accurate.