“The respiratory illness has infected 3,179,714 residents statewide since the start of the pandemic”
And they know this how? But using your numbers, the death rate is less than 1.4%. And that’s assuming that all deaths were from Covid not with Covid. Heck. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to get Covid. Or be sick from anything. But that’s not realistic. Apparently no one gets a cold, flu or any other respiratory virus anymore. Unless....Covid
I don't know about that. At least locally, on of our TV stations has for years done a segment at least once a week on what local physicians and NP are seeing "going around" or happening frequently: Anything from poison ivy to sinusitis to flu or gastric ailments. Recently, RSV has been hot.
Now I'd agree flu cases have been way down, but, mitigation vs. any respiratory spreading virus works at least "some", and what slows down Covid seriously puts the whammy on the flu. (What's going on with RSV I don't know, but, we had a period this late spring into summer with virtually no mitigation, so I'd say both RSV and Covid-Delta are perhaps near "parallel" in case curve shape; flu never shows here in warm months anyway.)
Anecdotally, my wife, daughter, and I all in the same week came down with a pretty darn miserable respiratory "something" last fall. Testing pretty much ruled out Covid. But, we did not test for anything else, or seek treatment as: A) None of us was severely ill or getting worse, by the time the tests came back; B) We figured the risk of getting COVID if we went to the ER or a Clinic was higher than the risk from our "bug". Talking to quite a few people, and some nurse friends, I think that sort of "action" (or lack of it) is common.