In another discussion group I was making the same point you were about obesity, and the provaxx crowd admitted that what really mattered to them was not death statistics but whether the disease is contagious.
This is bizarre since colds and the flu are contagious.
We are dealing with true irrational fear-mongering by the mass media and the politicians.
In short we are talking about brainwashing.
Somewhere on my list of things to do is to re-read the book Crisis and Leviathan. As I recall, the crises are amplified to create fear far in excess of the real threat. Whether it's a contagious disease, or a financial crisis, or the danger to the country from Islamic terrorism, the real threat is pale in comparison to the image created by the politicians and media. They intentionally scare the hell out of people. When the population is sufficiently scared, the public demands that something be done. They'll give up some of their liberties to feel safe again. Once the crisis is past, the government backs off a little bit from the most draconian measures, but they never restore the country to where it was before. From one "crisis" on to the next, the people gradually give up their freedom. And in reality it isn't just giving up their freedoms, they're actually demanding that the government take those freedoms away.