You may be a biologist, but you are definitely not an epidemiologist.
It is at least 10x more lethal and much more contagious. We will bear the brunt of it in the US because we didn't take it seriously for so long. The only reason we aren't at 2,000+ deaths per day in the US is because now we are taking it seriously. That death rate sustained for a typical flu season (4 months) would be 240,000 deaths. This is serious. If we never took it seriously the death toll would be well over a million. And that is just in the US. Downplaying the severity of it will get people killed.
Yes we should take flu more seriously. But that doesn't make this not so bad.
My training was in a hospital medical center and I'm familiar with epidemiology. I think most claims about total deaths due to covid are uninformed speculation based on incomplete data.
You are making predictions that we have absolutely no confidence about. That's not helpful. I'm saying we don't have the data to claim what you're claiming.
You're missing context. It's 10x more lethal in CERTAIN DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS.
The data so far shows that it's the same lethality or less in people under 60 y.o. with no pre-existing conditions which is a huge proportion of the world and it may even be LESS because 80% of those tested have NO OR MINOR SYMPTOMS so who knows how many have it and haven't been tested!
It's not even remotely serious at all in that population.
No, it's more like 5-10% lethal in certain demographic groups. It is 10x as lethal (1% as opposed to 0.1%) in the general population. And there has been enough testing in some regions to know pretty well. The pandemic is stressing hospitals wherever there is a large enough concentration of people. The flu just does not do that. Mainly because we have vaccines to keep R0 1.2 to 1.3. When we get vaccines it may be even less contagious than the flu. But right now it is significantly more contagious and significantly more deadly.
It is at least 10x more lethal and much more contagious. We will bear the brunt of it in the US because we didn't take it seriously for so long. The only reason we aren't at 2,000+ deaths per day in the US is because now we are taking it seriously. That death rate sustained for a typical flu season (4 months) would be 240,000 deaths. This is serious. If we never took it seriously the death toll would be well over a million. And that is just in the US. Downplaying the severity of it will get people killed.
Yes we should take flu more seriously. But that doesn't make this not so bad.