“FluBro response: Yea, but how many people died of flu last year?”
61,200 according to CDC estimates. That was 2018-2019. Their new gold standard is 2017-2018 with a toll of 80,000. Worst flu season this millennium.
Over 6 months, the entire flu season, without mitigation, Flu2017 killed 80,000. In 6 weeks, with widespread quarantines and shutdowns, CCP-19 has killed almost 19,000. Not including the couple thousand not in the official tally in NYC alone.
To be fair, there was SOME modest mitigation of flu in 2017-18, and, of course, a vaccine which was rather off target, but did SOME good nonetheless. Around here, some school districts closed briefly, and I observed sanitizer in short supply.
One wonders how much a vigorous PSA campaign of simple measures but no business shutdowns would have helped. I’ll bet that death toll could have been reduced 25% or more.