I personally don't see how COVID was overblown at all. I see that some of the steps taken were inefficient and ineffective, but a year ago we knew little about the disease and its transmission.
Half a million additional deaths when we would normally have had 2.9 million TOTAL is a huge increase.
It hit Europe hard also, and Brazil and a few other places, not as much Africa though the data there may be suspect. (Is).
I hear some folks who once said everything was being done properly now claiming it wasn't, but I take that as political pandering.