You want to really brainfuck people, point out that Swine Flu is still an epidemic. They just haven't heard about it because Western media can't get any bootlicking done by posting death counts from China and Southeast Asia.
In 2020, when Taiwan got their first wave of Covid-19, they also had a simultaneous outbreak of swine flu. They made it through by (1) being an island nation, and (2) immediately cracking down on people's movement. They closed off the borders and forced contact tracing and personal tracking apps on their citizens. I'm not a fan of the tactics, obviously, but at least it was a competent response tailored to their specific situation.
Right around the time the entire media apparatus was screeching that Trump told people to drink bleach, a bunch of Asian countries had finally wrestled Covid into a manageable state, some without the authoritarian measures. They had their own variants and everything over there, which never spread around enough for people to know the names. (There's a lot of Greek letters in between Alpha, Delta, and Omicron.) And they continue to deal with seasonal versions of the other flus.
Western approaches to epidemics aren't just stupid, they haven't evolved. There was no learning accomplished at the institutional level. Our readiness level has actually devolved, degraded by the politicization of it all.