I think most people would have had a hard time remembering exactly which year the H1N1 virus hit, at least before Covid. I've done some purely random surveys, and almost no one gets the right year - 2009 - and it was only 11 years ago. Since few can recall when it happened, it can only be because it didn't make much of a dent in everyday life. And frankly, that's how I recall it as well.
Now before that outbreak ended, Wikipedia says this:
It is estimated that 11–21% of the then global population (of about 6.8 billion), or around 700 million–1.4 billion people, contracted the illness — more in absolute terms than the Spanish flu pandemic. with about 150,000–575,000 fatalities. Estimates vary, of course, and these numbers are on the high end, but by any definition, it was pretty bad. And yet . . . we can't remember when it happened.
As of today, the WHO has confirmed 168,000 cases of Covid-19 and about 6,400 deaths (or so says my Covid-19 Tracker). The WHO also acknowledges that many more may be infected but are unaware of it, so it is next to impossible to estimate an accurate mortality rate from the reported numbers (estimates currently seem to vary from about 1% to a high of 3%, which is of course higher than H1N1, but again, these are high estimates, since we have no idea how many have had the virus but did not report it, since it can be very mild in terms of symptoms).
I suggest we have more to fear from fear than from the virus.
