I would chip in to the OPs feedback by repeating some advice that's somewhat commonplace but is very practical: for anyone in the shoes the OP has described, practice your speech, especially if you haven't found yourself in this situation before. Instead of feeling like you have to defend yourself, come up with a short spiel about your layoff situation that explains why you're back on the market.
Example: [John/Jane Smith] was a software engineer at Big Bill's Railroad working on a content management system. When Covid-19 hit, people suddenly stopped riding the trains on Bill's railroad, and Bill had no other recourse but to reduce his workforce: less ridership, less revenue. Unfortunately, [John/Jane Smith] was part of this RIF and [John/Jane Smith is] now back on the market.
If it comes up in a HR screen, substitute [John/Jane Smith] with the appropriate "I" during conversation and it's a Covid-themed template that everyone will get. The above is a crude example, but you should try to turn your experiences into paragraphs. Not everyone has the "leisure" of being in an impacted industry and it's more difficult to do if you've been fired rather than laid off, but it's important to package yourself for various audiences. Put your experiences into singular paragraphs, trim out all the cruft and fat, and you have good blurbs about yourself that are quick and informative.
