There was never any realistic possibility of controlling a highly contagious respiratory virus, so COVID-19 didn't expose anything about humanity's ability to control global phenomenons. What it did expose was the tendency of many people to irrationally overreact to a relatively minor risk, mostly because the risk was novel.
There's nothing novel about highly contagious respiratory virus? We have had disease since before we were human. The novelty is how swiftly and comprehensively we reacted (I'm not dismissing the problems with our reactions and responses, just pointing out the upside.)
The mRNA vaccines were a wonderful innovation but the scientific data clearly shows that even before vaccines arrived the risk to me (and the vast majority of other people) was always minor. There was certainly never any valid justification for the cruel and destructive policies imposed by irrational authoritarians such as lockdowns, school closures, and mandates.
Humans in general lack the ability to objectively judge risks, but once they become habituated to a particular risk it kind of fades into the background and they stop worrying about it. The same thing will happen with LLMs once the hype dies down and people realize that they are merely productivity enhancing tools which can be used by humans for both good and evil. When the printing press was first invented some authority figures panicked and tried to suppress that disruptive new technology which allowed for much greater productivity than writing by hand, but ultimately their concerns proved to be irrelevant.
