80,000 was estimate of 2017-2018 flu season:
26 Sept: 2018: AP: CDC: 80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., highest death toll in 40 years
In recent years, flu-related deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to — in the worst year — 56,000, according to the CDC...
CDC officials called the 80,000 figure preliminary, and it may be slightly revised. But they said it is not expected to go down.
It eclipses the estimates for every flu season going back to the winter of 1976-1977. Estimates for many earlier seasons were not readily available.
https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/
I don’t know how that’s relevant. Mortality is defined as deaths / cases. Not deaths. The reason you do that is because different amounts of containment apply to different organisms.
Our common flu viruses do not have quarantines enforced for them. If flu breaks out on a cruise ship the people on the cruise ship are not restricted from debarking. Because of this many more cases of flu are in the population and thus can kill more people.
This virus has a death to cases ratio about 50X greater than flu. If the same number of cases were allowed to unfold that would be 50 times more deaths for this virus than for flus. And that’s why you don’t allow the same number of cases to unfold.
But containment is effective and active case count is in decline.