Yes localized we've had bad flu years. The netherlands was hit pretty hard in 2017-2018 too and europe didn't shut down either. But you're comparing an epidemic

Yes localized we've had bad flu years. The netherlands was hit pretty hard in 2017-2018 too and europe didn't shut down either. But you're comparing an epidemic to a pandemic here. Again, much much different scale. Or: a disease that can be vaccinated against vs one that we were not able to vaccinate against then.