Its simpler than that, if we're brutally honest and scientific: the developed world had accumulated, through extensive use of modern medicine and redistributive welfare schemes, a large population of people who were kept alive solely by modern medicine and the support (forced or otherwise) of their fellow citizens.
With the appearance of a new type of virus, mostly harmless to the majority of the population, but lethal to those at the medical fringes (eg. 99% of fatal cases in Italy have existing health problems, average age 79), we overreacted and in the process destroyed our economy and society, unwilling to face our own mortality.
With the appearance of a new type of virus, mostly harmless to the majority of the population, but lethal to those at the medical fringes (eg. 99% of fatal cases in Italy have existing health problems, average age 79), we overreacted and in the process destroyed our economy and society, unwilling to face our own mortality.