COVID Response: Who wins? Who loses?

I remember back when having a "case" of something meant that you actually had some kind of affliction: A "case" of athlete's foot, or a "case" of liver cancer, or a "case" of dandruff, or a "case" of depression, etc, etc.

Now, in a surreal and historic twist on the science of epidemiology and medicine, the media, and therefore all of us, are relentlessly focusing on COVID "cases", even though about 85% of those cases are completely asymptomatic, and only a small fraction of the remaining "cases" with symptoms are at risk of death or long-term disability. Even though we know who the at-risk groups are, and why they are at-risk. Even though we know how to mitigate those risks and build up our immune responsiveness.

But rather than respond to this threat proportionately by focusing on those most at-risk, COVID "cases" have become everyone's new boogeyman, causing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the population at large, and generating economic and social collateral damage far exceeding the actual threat of this virus to the population at large.

Why is this global, fear-mongering approach to the COVID-19 threat persisting? Who wins? Who loses?

— KJF