Why do people compare other viruses to Covid 19?

[Mama Noodle]

I see it often on this forum, people use other viruses in recent memory as examples of 'success' while covid as an example of 'failure' and it seems extremely low info to me. 

 

For example: Such & Such prime minister/president/dictator was running a country and ebola/swine flu/avian flu/SARS/MERS was not a problem and now this prime minister/president/dictator is running the country and covid is a massive problem - therefore the current prime minister/president/dictator is a failure and the previous prime minister/president/dictator was a success. 

 

Do some people honestly not understand how the other viruses in recent memory were completely different than the current one? 

 

Another example is quite alot of people think that just because a virus is more fatal than another, it makes it more 'dangerous' and equally prone to causing a pandemic. And that is just not true. 

 

There is a certain virus 'recipe' that it takes to cause a global pandemic.

 

For example - A virus that has a 50% kill ratio seems super dangerous, yet as a pandemic level virus they typically aren't as dangerous as a virus that has a 1-2% kill ratio. Why? Because the 50% kill ratio virus puts people down fast, they aren't walking around spreading it, then they die. Coronavirus has an extremely low fatality rate, around half of those infected are asymptomatic yet still spread it walking around, and the incubation period is long etc..