But this is kind of exactly what we did. Go look at a yearly all-cause mortality chart going back the last 110 years. You’ll see this year is a noticeable but not so great uptick (of which many of the deaths will be overdoses, suicides, lack of medical treatment for preventable diseases etc btw). Whereas say the 1918 Flu pandemic was much more deadly in absolute and relative terms both.
Remember we’re talking about a disease that for many is so mild that they never realize they have it. For others like the very elderly it can be very bad, with a 5% chance of dying if infected, but it’s no surprise that surveys that ask people to estimate COVID-19 mortality show that on average people overestimate the fatality by between 10-100x.
SARS-2 is real, but the real virus really is in our minds. I hope one day you will come to see things my way too.
I also hope more commenters here will go mode out what happens when you perform universal rather than targeted mitigation measures: universal ends up with more mortality by slowing down infections in those who are not at risk, which delays hers immunity for almost no benefit.