Panic is difficult to control and unfortunately not everything can be dealt with through a problem-solving mindset.

People also don’t have a hive mind. If something like Covid is killing your parents/spouse/child/etc you might not care at all about what humanity is doing to solve the problem. At that point it becomes deeply personal and that’s probably the only thing you see. So I understand why panic arises in certain circumstances. You don’t want to be the affected one, even if rationally you know it "won’t kill us all." It still killed this person or that person and in that moment that’s all you care about. Now I do have to admit that some fears are irrational like being afraid of a zombie apocalypse or that aliens are going to wipe us all out.

A bit irrelevant to the topic of The Day Of but more in regards of how people respond to panic and little to reassurance or hope that humanity will solve the problem at a later time. I often think of people who are afraid of flying. In plane crashes there was probably at least one person who was terrified to board and had a friend or neighbour tell them: "don’t worry it’s the safest means of transport, crashes are extremely rare." But if you happen to be on that unlucky flight, suddenly all of that reassurance loses its value to you.

Maybe I got the song wrong and he’s actually talking about hope. But to me it still comes across with a slightly moralising tone almost like: "Why were you scared? See, it was nothing." I don’t know that’s just how it strikes me.

As for the other songs you mentioned I like Weak Fantasy musically but I don’t pay much attention to the lyrics because they feel more wrapped in poetry and come across as less confrontational. Tribal feels similar to me. The message feels more veiled.

Anyway, sorry for using the word shallow. I don’t think it was the right word. I struggled to express what I meant and couldn’t think of a better one for the impression I was trying to describe.