Ya, over 600k dead is just made up.
No. But it could be played/manipulated in various ways. The fact that with COVID-19 virtually non-existent in NY the overwhelming majority of people shopping at Costco are wearing masks when it is optional, shows that fear and hysteria were indeed ingrained into people's psyche.
You can't bring up the "over 600k dead" to a person that lived in a community that suffered deaths
when there was virtually nothing to do about it as no-one was aware of it already being here, or how it spreads, but has since been living a virtually normal life for many months
even before vaccines were available, and now that vaccines are available the entire community is living without any fear.