In The Netherlands, the worst flu seasons still have a higher death toll than corona. I hope it stays that way for everyone.
> De oversterfte in week 10 tot en met 19 van de COVID-19 epidemie was 9.768
> De oversterfte tijdens de 18 weken griepepidemie werd geschat op 9.444
Anyway definitely not 25% worse.
That's far higher than all regular flu seasons, although nowhere near as bad as previous flu pandemics.
[0] http://jogh.org/documents/issue201902/jogh-09-020421.pdf
Do you have a link to the statistics please? I think you're comparing two different methods of counting death. I think for covid-19 you're counting people who died after testing positive, or people where covid-19 is listed as the cause on the death certificate. But for flu I think you're counting excess mortality.
You're right though, I think something different was counted. In one case it was covid-19 deaths vs excess mortality. A sister comment rectified it, fortunately. It took this source [2] that references the excess mortality of the Dutch worst flu season and covid-19.
Then you get:
> De oversterfte in week 10 tot en met 19 van de COVID-19 epidemie was 9.768
> De oversterfte tijdens de 18 weken griepepidemie werd geschat op 9.444
(I think you can gather which is which but you could use Google Translate to be 100% sure)
So COVID-19 is actually higher and in 10 weeks rather than 18 weeks. And also, now that we're comparing a bit more apples to apples (The Netherlands), then we have to take into account that an "intelligent lockdown" (whatever that means) has taken place.
We had less death per 1 million than the Swedish as we were on 6132 at the time of this comment with covid related deaths.
So in conclusion, I made a few subtle errors that ultimately really add up. I wish I could still edit my top comment, I am happy I could already admit one error I made (that Sweden wasn't 100% roaming free), but using different units of measurement (covid related deaths vs excess mortality was another one).
[1] In Dutch, unfortunately: https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland
One big question would be why they chose April 2020 as the comparison point rather than May or June -- did the number of deaths per month in Sweden actually drop?
(I haven't read the article closely, and don't have a horse in this race --- I just thought it was apropos. Feel free to tear it to shreds if appropriate.)
When people say "covid is like flu" sometimes they mean "flu is a big deal, and a bad flu year kills lots of people". (I agree with that).
But sometimes they mean "flu isn't so bad, it's a bit like a cold, doesn't kill so many people".