That is certainly a fair point from a psychological effect view, and the meat of the pandemic era was indeed a very weird, very surreal time, but I am unsure "I thought we were all going to die" is a court-admissible defense for illegal behavior. Certainly if you think humanity will be wiped out in a day or two, you could reasonably expect to murder someone without facing recrimination for it... but if society survived, you would definitely not be exempt from responsibility for it.
I mean, not guilty by reason of temporary insanity is a valid legal verdict, so yes, if you really have become unhinged and gripped by fear to the extent that you don't act rationally you are, by the law, exempt from responsibility for your actions.
