Bit by bit, it is becoming the new influenza. Not saying we're there yet, but that's clearly where we're headed. Now, influenza kills lots of people; in 2018 over 60,000 people were killed by influenza in the USA alone. But we don't have border closing or "show your papers" or all the rest for influenza, and we're not going to.
2018 was an exceptionally bad year for influenza. Typically influenza deaths in the U.S. are between 20-30k. COVID deaths in the U.S. over a two year period amounted to over 1 million.
Look up how many deaths occurred in the 2-year 1918-1919 period.