Ain't it, though?
I imagine, when you talked to those who lived through the Spanish Flu in 1918, their memories or experience would be centered around those close to them, relatives, siblings, parents, who were sick or died, or their own severe illness. I just read a few accounts, and they talked about bodies in public, in the front yard, etc.
In COVID, it will be about work stoppages, wearing masks, shortages of things, vaccine passports, stolen elections, and even some people getting sick.
This is all very strange.
Funny you bring it up.
I had a friend who died at 101 and 5 months in 2011.
She had regaled us with tales of being forced to sequester in the top floor of their home in Payson, Utah .
She watched wagons pull the dead past her home and heard the lamentation of the living suffering from the loss of a loved one.
She started telling us about this during the Swine Flu of 2009.
In May of 2009 we landed in Mexico with doses of Tamiflu for each of us and upon disembarking were informed the entire country had been shut down.
You would have thought the world would have learned a lesson from that idiocy but, Nope. They thought it was a great idea anyway.