Doesn't seem that is unbelievable at all to me. Instead I think it just highlights how humans can discount the severity of something when it moves slowly and continues for years.

Remember the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 that was a major catastrophe around the world? According to a Google search it killed 227,898 people. Last I checked Covid had killed about 5.5 million, which is worse that every single war since WWII.

Of course, I think it's very fair to say the devastation from a war is much worse than Covid (a war destroys infrastructure and primarily kills the young), but from a pure "number of deaths" perspective I think most people have a huge difficulty comprehending the severity of the pandemic.