When the government shut down the country for a few years and started sending out "covid pandemic checks", economists warned that the economy would crash. I'm not sure about the true cause and effect here, but the economy sure has crashed.
Perhaps people forget that things like air travel, restaurants, and going into the office were shutting down naturally in the US even before government recommendations to do so.
And there were actually very few US-wide mandates or anything resembling a government forced “shutting down the country” outside of restrictions on international air travel.