After reading a bit more about Taleb's definition, I don't really agree or disagree with you. I now think it's actually easy to argue both that COVID-19 is and is not a black swan event, given the (likely intentional) ambiguity of the definition, which is more like a heuristic than a definition.
No - this is not true at all.
1) All of the major economic calamities were 'predicted by someone' in the field.
2) Black Swans are 'improbable' - which COVID absolutely is.
"According to Taleb, black swans are events that emerge unpredictably, like a tornado, from a fat-tailed statistical distribution."
What we are seeing is point-blank exemplary of 'Black Swan'.