Influenza is a virus that is constantly mutating. I think the comparison means to the variants colloquially known as "the flu", which are the ones that make you sick for a week or maybe two. They're not comparing to all influenza variants ever.

Exactly. It's still a serious infection! It makes otherwise healthy young adults super ill for a week or two, and kill the elderly and the very young.

The original strain of covid was not worse than the deadliest strains of influenza, but "common" circulating strains of influenza kill tens of thousands almost every year. I would say every year, except deaths from influenza plummeted in 2020/2021 due to masking and social distancing.

2020 and 2021 are the root of my claim that Covid is "worse". Millions died of covid during this time, but deaths from influenza dropped to minuscule levels. Some strains of influenza may have gone extinct.

Influenza that makes you sick for a week or two isn't a trivial thing either! If you're lucky, you'll just feel awful for a week. If you're unlucky, you're part of the chain of transmission that kills someone's grandparents. Get your flu shots.

> This finding should be interpreted in the context of a 2 to 3 times greater number of people being hospitalized for COVID-19 vs influenza in the US in this period.

> However, the difference in mortality rates between COVID-19 and influenza appears to have decreased since early in the pandemic; death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study.

The gap between mortality rates for covid and the flu has decreased, but covid is still clearly worse.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2803749

While you're right that then 1918 flu was worse than any variant of Covid that was more than 100 years ago, not now. Covid is now, and considerably more deadly than current flu strains.