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One huge issue in this comparison is that the number of people who died from COVID is drastically reduced compared to say, the Spanish Flu because our ability to help patients with respiratory disease and dysfunction has advanced from "a comfortable bed and prayers" to "a comfortable bed and prayers and a ventilator" since 1921. Virtually all of the folks who wound up in an ICU today (most of whom got better and went home) would've just been dead in 1919-1921. The original motivation for the lockdowns was "flattening the curve" (remember that phrase?), which was essentially the goal of avoiding a situation in which capacity limits on the aforementioned ventilators resulted in case fatality rates approaching 1920 numbers instead of 2020 numbers for the folks who showed up after the last vent was used. That has worked.

The hotly debated part of the response to the virus stems from the wildly disparate infection fatality rates among different groups of people. That distinction doesn't lend itself to "people who eat out are monsters" or "masks are tyranny" as arguments, and instead requires a look at data and practical techniques for reducing the incidence among folks who are likely to get very sick with or die of COVID and minimizing the impact on people who are very likely to shrug it off.