Virus v. Flu

We've heard that the flu will probably kill as many people as the coronavirus. Yet middle-class people don't fear the flu, and the virus frightens them. Why?

It depends on which class is in danger. Middle-class and rich people with health care get flu shots. If they catch the flu, their doctors know how to treat it. Poor people without health care, on the other hand, die from the flu. And poor people, in this culture, don't matter much.  If they did, we'd  have universal health care.

But the rich and famous can get the new virus. There is no protective shot, and scientists are still trying to develop an effective treatment. The poor without health care are dying in much greater numbers than the rich, but the rich and middle-class are in some danger. That changes everything.