COVID-19 is more deadly than influenza. When you see dead bodies stacked up in refrigerator trucks, we have never seen such conditions like this. For a check on such false assumptions that say COVID-19 is not worth the concern, please read this Scientific American" article:
Unfortunately, we have a bunch of people* on here who are either ignorant, willfully ignorant, or just don’t comprehend what it means that COVID-19 mitigation knocked the absolute crap out of our flu season.
*I had to refrain mightily to not use a disrespectful word.
It is true that some of this likely comes from the wolf-crying about AWG, and even some past pandemics. However, that’s where sober, sound analysis and judgment comes in. The world still has its wolves, once in a while.
But to my “flu” point:
As I said, COVID-19 mitigation clearly slammed the flu to the turf. And it clearly has greatly reduced the rate of flu deaths during the short time the mitigation has been in place. Since the transmission means of the two diseases are similar (COVID-19 is just better at it, and of course, at least starting off, no one had immunity from vaccine or “herd” to CV), as a sort of rough estimate one can invert the reduction (multiplier) to guesstimate where COVID-19 might have taken us with low end mitigation.
Of course, at SOME point - probably when hospitals in some large city are overwhelmed, then restrictions would kick in, perhaps even more severely than what we have seen here in the US: That would eventually “flatten” the curve, though at a much grimmer level and with much greater disruptions to the food supply, etc., than we have seen. So, then we have the wonderful combination of more disruption, probably greater economic fallout, and MANY more fatalities.
Could the mitigation have been done better in the US, to reduce the economic fallout? Maybe, but I think we are then looking at specific statewide application, not the Federal response.
Actually, I’ll amend that comment: The US CDC did NOT do a good job. The list of screw ups is too long to go in to, but, a really simple one is that if they were going to recommend masks for everybody, the 1st day they should have provided instructions w/ graphics on how to make and use respectably effective homemade masks. Instead we see this nonsense of masks not over noses, very poor seals, and materials and usage that may do more harm than good in some situations.