The question OP asked kind of answers itself.
Millions become millionaires during Covid pandemicI think people with a lot of experience in trading and investing and also with some important life experience in general are better set up to identify opportunities when the world is in shambles. One such example are those who invested in pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic and made fortunes doing so. A condition is of course that liquidity is available and you saved up enough beforehand.
It is much different for people who need to spend every penny of what they earn each month. They have no choice anyway even if they were to understand that an investment is smart in a certain industry during a recession or a crisis like the pandemic.
As bad as it sounds, but when Putin started attacking Ukraine, some smart people put money into military companies. Just have a look at Lockheed Martin's share price. As bad as it sounds and apart from the moral aspects, this is just to show that there are ways to reasonably analyze what a crisis or recession is actually about and make decisions accordingly.
To summarize, some people will always go broke during a recession. It kind of is an irrefutable given of the term "recession". It means that wealth is destroyed and those who don't own any wealth usually pay their price with painful existential consequences.