Best estimate is that the death rate of those infected with Spanish influenza was about .6%. to some today that would seem hardly worth worrying about.
Our first set of data with COVID-19 came from China and it looked like the fatality rate was much higher , more like that of related outbreaks like SARS and MERS.
Out of 17,238 early COVID-19 cases 321 ended in death. Nearly 2%. As we know data was incomplete and we got better at treating it and vaccinations primed immune systems to cope when they were exposed. It also helped the virus mutated to a less virulent strain. Looking back the best estimated cfr was about 1.2%
What I'm getting at is we lived through genuine history. At least most of us did.