The US also has more than three time the population and travel from one place in the country to another is far easier- as a percentage, COVID has killed roughly 1/3 of the number who died from the Spanish Flu, although the spread at that time would have been partially from people returning to their homes after WWI and it would have been easily spread during the war- regardless, it has generally been far easier to travel now, than in 1918-1920.
It's not 'just like the flu', but I'm not very confident that the vaccines are as effective as they say, although they do seem to limit the severity of the infection in those who have been vaccinated (which is the whole point, right?). However, seeing that people who contracted the virus & recovered, received the shot(s) afterward and were exposed to the Delta variant are having worse complications than those who weren't infected before receiving the shot(s). A friend (he's 66 years old) got the J&J shot and was infected- he said it took a long time to be 'back to normal', although he has suffered from Asthma for most of his life. I knew several people who were said to have died from COVID and most had some kind of serious medical condition before or were older than 65.
Nice job by the Mayor of San Fran, who is reported to have said “Make sure you are vaccinated because of the requirements, but don’t feel as though you have to be micromanaged about mask-wearing,” the mayor told reporters. “Like, we don’t need the fun police to come in and try and micromanage and tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing.” in the link below-