"Who even cares?" It takes empathy-blinders to not see this. Think of all the people whose livelihoods were incredibly damaged by Coronavirus: the children whose parents died alone in an ICU and no one was allowed to see them; the young fathers who couldn't be with their wife as she gives birth; the millions who lost jobs; the thousands upon thousands of businesses and cultural events ended.

This is a material worsening of society and our economy, that's why people care. Do you even care about the happiness and health of fellow humans?

If N is the number of endemic pathogens before Corona then we have now N+1. It's not a question about empathy but about realism, pal.

The Plague is one good example: https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html