It imposed draconian general-population lockdown measures, and closed down the economy, irrespective of the domestic consequences, for a viral respiratory disease that all the recent studies are convergently saying is no worse than a seasonal flu.

How will the government representatives and enablers respond when the dust settles?

They will hold onto the absurd. They will hide the harm of the lockdown (violence, economy, jobs, subservience training...). They will claim that they beat the coronavirus when it slows, and then claim that any resurgence would have been worse had they not intervened; all contrary to known science and the accumulating empirical data, of course.

And ordinary citizens who bought into the lie will continue to protect the government by going berserk when challenged that it was a lie: Surely they were right to enjoy the new circumstances at home and to police their neighbours.

If there are fewer deaths than the artificial predictions then the government will claim that it saved lives, millions of lives.