Flu has a significantly lower R0 and also a vaccine that changes every year, but could still make you partially immune to whatever strain comes your way, should you utilize it.
Good point and one I was also going to make.
The amount of influenza cases and influenza deaths are IMO way too high given we have vaccines for flu and while not perfect, does give at least partial immunity resulting in fewer serious cases. So unless you have a medical condition that precludes it, so get your damn flu shots people! If not for yourself, for someone else.
And while flu strains mutate over time, absent vaccination, having had a similar strain may also give at least partial immunity. This is thought to be one of the reasons it was largely people under 40 who died from Spanish flu as researchers have discovered there was an H1N1 flu going around in the 1870’s, not the same as Spanish flu and certainly not as deadly but close enough that people who had had it in the 1870’s were either immune or partially immune.
People need to also understand that COVID-19, this strain of a SARS-COVID is novel in humans, so no one has any natural immunity. And this is particularly scary when it comes to health care workers and first responders as they are typically vaccinated for influenza but no such vaccine exists for COVID-19 yet.
And the hospitalization rate for COVID-19 is much higher and the hospitalization length much longer than for influenza.