People are, statistically speaking, really bad at figuring out what to worry about. See: terrorist attacks, plane crashes, shark attacks, abduction by strangers. So maybe this is good news about the pandemic.
Not anywhere near as many as are dying from Covid.
I'm well aware of the flu risk, and already had my vaccination for that for this season. Most people I know poo-poo getting that vaccination, despite it taking only 5 minutes and is already paid for by one's insurance.
COVID-19 is on pace to put a million people in the ground by the end of the year (IIRC) and certainly leave many survivors with serious health problems, and we really still know very little about treating it, and it is more contagious and more deadly, especially to the healthy population.
We are past “it’s just a flu.”
Not really. We just are used to it. 12,000 to 61,000 US deaths per year over the last decade. This adds up year after year.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=Whil....
I'm not dismissing covid as "just a flu". I'm pointing out that people dismiss the annual deaths from the flu. For example, few people take any particular steps to minimize transmission of the flu, like wearing a mask or keeping their kids out of school.
Dismissing the annual death toll of the flu as not a real problem is what my point was. We're used to flu deaths, they aren't news. But several tens of thousands in the US still die of the flu every year. It is not a solved problem, the vaccine is only partially effective, and most people don't even get one.