pandemic (noun)
1. Conventional
Let's go with Merriam-Webster:An outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population : a pandemic outbreak of a disease.
Of course, this usage can also be an adjective.
New 2020 Definitions
2. Crisis not to be wasted by pro-government types
Crisis which allows vast expansion of government and government-mandated regulation.
3. Excuse used by public-sector employees
An excuse not to work: Excuse to not do your job, and yet, still get paid. Particularly for government and public-sector employees. See teachers.
4. Virtue signaling event
An ideal virtue signaling milieu for left-of-center types. See zeitgeist.
5. Mass hysteria
Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement among a group of people. Also see, zeitgeist.
In fact, I would argue that 2-5 have really come to define the zeitgeist of our time. It is truly shameful. Yet half of us are smugly proud of it and half of us have been and continue to be victimized by it.
Update 8 July 2021
Today I read that global Covid-related deaths have reached four million people. Yeah, that's a lot of people. But in a world with nearly eight billion people, the mortality rate of Covid hovers around: 0.0005. That's one-twentieth of one percent. And the alarmists...er, I mean the politicians and the so-called journalists, are happy to include comorbidities in their reporting.
I should think that the lunacy of shutting down the global economy is more than obvious. You have to be willfully blind not to see it. Or, have completely ulterior motives entirely.
In other words, if you are part of this nonsense, or if you merely support it, you are stupid or unthinking or just plain evil.