I haven't looked it up, but 55,000 flu/pneumonia deaths a year is about 153 a day, compared to COVID-19 running near 2,000 a day:
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1727839/
This visualization is from before the acknowledgement that COVID-19 deaths were only counting confirmed positive / presumed positives from the earlier set of CDC symptoms, not the 3x larger set of symptoms revised last week.
Also doesn't account for second order deaths such as those with other health problems not seeking treatment from an overloaded system, or providers in the system committing suicide from PTSD.
Taking into account the lack of all immunity to and lack of vaccine for COVID to date, and just how much more virulent COVID is (therefore front loading the disease burden) in the full course of time the flu is almost certainly going to take a much, much larger toll.
It's killed 600,000 people per year, each and every year you've been alive worldwide. So far, COVID is at 1/3 of a year's worth of flu deaths -- let alone a lifetimes -- and are approaching 25%+ of the population of some high profile cities infected. Once it gets to 70% or so, it's most likely going to burn itself out due to herd immunity.
"It's killed 20-60K people per year, each and every year you've been alive in the US. So far, COVID is at about a year's worth of a bad flu deaths in the US -- let alone a lifetimes -- and are approaching 25%+ of the population of some high profile cities infected. Once it gets to 70% or so, it's most likely going to burn itself out due to herd immunity."
You calculate herd immunity % from R0, and it's odd to decide 70% is not generous and ballpark guess because you think the data "conflicts" - there's no "conflicting" between values in a range, go ahead and cherry-pick the lowest R0 you've seen and find out what the herd immunity % required is based on that (higher than 70%)
Won't even touch you trying to pretend this is the same as the flu, plenty of other threads address that.
I've made it clear already, but just to reiterate, this is one of the worst comments I've seen on HN in a while.
That's not generous, or not generous, it's just a ballpark guess based on the best (conflicting) data we have so far. You're also discounting the fact that with every individual to gain immunity, the transmission rate is reduced. You're also extrapolating from what may be the worst possible phase of this virus. As time passes we develop better treatments and medications, we have more necessary equipment where it needs to be, we have better early detection and so on.
"...you're looking at mortality rate that swamps that of all wars, terrorist attacks, and natural disaster"
Lots of things swamp those numbers. For example, the flu.