Just like the flu

Many have made asinine comparisons to the flu. See, the flu killed X last year whereas Corona has killed less than X. Therefore, not as bad as the flu!

What they don't notice is that a) the Corono R₀ is extremely high, and b) Corona just made its debut; it needs a few weeks to warm up:

Nice picture of extremistan versus mediocristan mortality and why "
Covid is different:@nntaleb @trishankkarthik https://t.co/S96otvPqbq

— uair01 (@uair01) April 17, 2020

A few concrete numbers from NYC:

New York had 4,749 deaths as a result of influenza and pneumonia in 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control (statistics for 2019 were not available). The New York City Department of Health said that roughly 2,000 of those deaths happen within the five boroughs every year.

If divided equally over the course of a year, slightly under 400 New Yorkers died each month in 2018 from the flu or pneumonia, around 167 of whom were in the city. It is consistently one of the top five causes of death in the state and NYC.

Total deaths from the flu in NYC in 2018: 2,000

Deaths, so far, from the Coronavirus in NYC in 2020: 11,477