My question to you has been whether it would not have been more than strange - that is, highly improbable - if there had been no backlash given the dramatic fixation on the issue.
Can I interpret your answer as "yes", it would have been strange?
Apart from your or indeed my view of an appropriate response, I find that of others, the loud ones, understandable, although I don't necessarily share it. A more wait-and-see position that does not support either fearful attitude is probably preferable, as so often in life, things turn out to be less dramatic in retrospect.
Nevertheless, my personal experience has been that the extremism that spread like wildfire across the world in 2020 did not even begin to listen to cautious or thoughtful voices, and hence the reaction of people who did not know how to make themselves heard other than, for example, taking to the streets or writing provocative posts.
The stadium is a good comparison in this respect because two fan bodies meet there, each supporting a different team. The cheers are always for one's own team, never for the opposing team, and the fan blocks are separated from each other. If the fans were to remain silent in the event of a goal for their own team, this would have a very disconcerting effect, true.
It's not the crowd's fault that you can't hear what's being said because of all the noise. The cacophony is not something you can blame for existing. There is always the possibility of contemplation and of withdrawing from the din or picking out individual voices that you perceive as reasonable or worthy of attention. In fact, you have no choice if you don't want to be infected by hysteria or excitement.
Communication is only possible between two people with the intensity one would wish for in a conversation that is accompanied by interest. But the way I shout at the crowd, nobody hears me, right.
I don't share that people would try to yell away a space rock (LOL, funny imagination), because people are never unanimous, they are not the Borg, they are disunited. While the loud ones yell, the other work on different things and they are quietly confident but that's why you don't hear them. That can be seen as positive, because total unanimity is firstly impossible and secondly - as I said - would have something exceedingly strange about it.