The major factor here is that today we have much better means of informing about the pandemic and acting on it. Working from home is an extremely novel concept. Online reselling is widespread. Food deliveries are totally normal for everyone. A lower number of people per household is common. A lock down and self isolation is MUCH easier today than 100 years ago. Because back then such a lockdown was almost impossible.

Sure, we still could simply ignore it all, and we'll most likely end up with less deaths than most of the big pandemics listed. But now we have the means to avoid turning this into a disastrous pandemic, and so we are making use of them.