The flu has been feared throughout history, as it is... frankly quite deadly at times. Now a days we have excellent flu monitoring, and flu shots, and have been able to manage it, also at great cost. But to dismiss the flu, and covid-19 as "nbd" is... not the kind of analytical strength I am expecting on HN. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fluAt the time of the breakout of Covid-19 in Jan/Feb 2020, the reports on the ground in Wuhan and Italy were pointing to a catastrophic failure of healthcare systems leading to significantly enhanced death rates, CFR of 10% or so was being observed in Wuhan. Yes, everyone knew that not everyone was being tested, but having 10% of everyone you tested died... well that ain't good. And China has a powerful government and can mobilize resources when they feel like it. Witness the building of hospitals in Wuhan in 10 days. Turns out they were probably more like convalescent centers, but they were fighting the multi-generational housing problem where younger sick people would get their parents/grandparents sick (who lived with them, and weren't able to isolate in their apartment/houses).
Back then, people noted "if we do this right, then we will be accused of over-reaction", and sure enough that is what we are seeing. Fun fact: by the time the first lockdowns in SF/bay area were announced, domestic flights were down... 97%. All major conferences had been cancelled. Tech companies were already allowing/requiring WFH. If that seems like an overreaction, imagine if Google Search went down in spring 2020... that isn't an impossible situation, after all if staff were spreading covid to each other readily without being aware and having a 1% death rate as a result... that is devastating. The notion that life would have been fine if we just ignored it is kinda nuts considering we had 800,000 deaths to date, and yet our mask effort resulted in the extinction of a strain of the flu, and reducing the pediatric flu deaths from 200 -> 1. Yet still 800,000 deaths.