Why do you think this is NOT a massive, vitally important tragedy? ~2k americans died in 9/11 and american life was never the same. ~100k americans have died (so far) from this and you think it's not a big deal?
This is a terrible comparison. The raw death toll was not, in any way, shape or form the thing about 9/11 that changed the planet - every flu season kills far more Americans than that, and the big flu pandemics I'm comparing this one to that are almost forgotten were firmly in the 100,000 American deaths ballpark (not to mention the even worse global deaths).
~30k Americans died in car accidents every year before this, so clearly there's a disconnect between raw death count and the "vitally important" nature of a tragedy.