"any other influenza" includes the 1918 pandemic. Which had a higher CFR, and that's before trying to account for QALYs: Covid is especially deadly to the old, in a nonlinear way, and Spanish Flu rather notoriously killed those in the prime of life.
Bird flu has an almost 50% CFR. We're lucky that, to date, strains aren't very infectious in humans.
"It's just a flu" is a really bad measure of how bad a disease is. Influenza is terrifying.
2) is almost tautologically true, but it's worth noting that the quarantine measures have been very effective at stopping the spread of other respiratory illnesses.
The excess mortality of Covid is visible, without trying to track deaths from it separately. The average victim is old enough that I wonder if it will remain visible if smoothed out over a five-year period.
We'll know eventually. "Heavy stress for years to come" from post-Covid syndrome is certainly possible; it's not the square upon which I'd lay my chips.
I disagree, for two reasons:
1) Covid seems to be stronger and deadlier than any other influenza
2) Covid is spreading in the world IN ADDITION to any other influenza or cold or disease that we already had.
Therefore, there's a case to be made for many health care systems in hard-hit countries to be under heavy stress for several years to come.