Its true that "no one really bats an eye." The world came to a stand still when all those people died on 9/11 (again, rightfully so), and now thousands of people die from the virus in a week and instead of honoring them we argue about whether it was their comorbidities that killed them and why we do/dont need to worry about the death toll.
Unfortunately, i think it's a case of two things:
1. 9/11 was visceral to the max degree; nonstop coverage on even non-news channels for days on end with images, interviews, videos, and so on replaying constantly of the devastation and loss of life. That brands your mind when exposed to it. And thus, even if you didn't lose "anyone" in 9/11, you still feel personally affected.
2. Leading into that, conversely, for whatever reason, if you're not personally someone who got severely ill or had a loved one get very sick/lose their life over this, it's just "not in front of you" and therefore it isn't as visceral as a traumatic one time event as 9/11.
I wish I could put my finger on it, but I'm not a psychologist (brain expert thingy)
Doesn't mean it's okay to necessarily think that way; but we all do it with different causes of harm or death; for an example an estimated 1600+ people will die per day of cancer this year in the US; we often think of cancer victims, especially if personally affected, but no one can say that we "ignore" it or don't bat an eye when it's compared to an event like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor because we don't donate to charity, complete a 5k, hold a vigil, or scream "does anyone even care?' weekly on the news...