Is the virus the 9/11 of the 2020s?

No, the only real comparison to be drawn is that both events are really bad and deadly. 9/11 was a faction attacking a civilian center; COVID-19 is a virus doing what viruses do. COVID-19 is killing far, far more people and the victims are "selected" by health factors, whereas 9/11 just killed a bunch of random people (mostly white collar) in one location. Though the [i]fallout[/i] of 9/11 will probably dwarf COVID-19 in terms of kill-count.

The terrorist attacks happened in a day. COVID-19 will happen over the course of months and months. And for the US, 9/11 decreased the partisan divide while COVID-19 seemed to exacerbate it.

A little early for that, maybe since the decade just started? But yeah, there's a similarity in that it's literally all that's been in the news for a month now and it's causing society to shut down (though this is causing it do so to a greater extent than 9/11 did).

Dumb question

It's not mass murder at least.