I think there's a large degree of variance here: I've been in places that would have struggled to hand over $1000 in cash, since they might have had only 2-3 times that total on hand for the entire week.

That was in a small town, but that's my point: anecdotes about being unable to withdraw money are more about logistics than a banking collapse being hidden from the public.

This was in a branch that before pandemic would fork out 10k easily. I’m not the only one who experienced this - my friends experienced this across different banks in different states.

This doesn't contradict what I've said, and doesn't imply financial instability: it's not particularly surprising that banks weren't receiving as many cash deliveries during the first year of the pandemic, or that demand for cash withdrawals was higher than normal.