How many people are hospitalized with the common cold? How many people die of the common cold each year? How many people have lingering health issues from the common cold months later?
There is a reason that deaths, hospitalization, and long term health effects for the common cold are never in the news. It is because they are so rare. Unlike COVID-19 where all of these are common.
If they were so rare then they would be in the news. They'd be newsworthy. Old guy dies from the flu and everyone goes "shame, man. he died of the flu..." and that's the end. People die from COVID and it is trumpeted to the world.
COVID is in the news precisely because of it being a narrative.