I think Rahm Emanuel's corollary ("You never let a serious crisis go to waste.") is that difficult circumstances make the best opportunities for government expansion. These will probably bear out as we witness the short-term and long-term responses to the coronavirus.

Government–which history has shown cannot keep us safe from war, terrorists, natural disasters, biological agents, malware, mass shootings, identity theft, or its own corrupt programs and actors–somehow always assumes more power and more influence when any situation arises of national concern.

Each such incident is followed with predictable government growth and each generates conspiracy theories along the lines that somebody planned this all out. With corona, one theory I heard among many was that this was a test run for a world-wide biological attack.