in the 90s i would imagine seeing a "Fun Fact" on the back of a cereal box saying "Did you know the Spanish flu actually started in Kansas?". And me going, "huh, mildly interesting"

These days people choose weird things to focus on. To the point where they will correct you if you say Spanish Flu like its offensive.

There's is definitely an effort to remove any instance of "The <country name> <disease name>". Regardless of accuracy. Renaming something isn't inherently political, but the choice of which misnamed things to rename is political.