“Isn't the novel corona virus, or Covid-19, just like the flu?”

Well, although I’ll discuss how this is just NOT factually correct – beyond similarities in some symptoms and how viruses have similarities in how they spread – let’s just consider this point for a second.

The flu is no minor illness. The Spanish Flu pandemic killed somewhere between 17 – 100 million people (globally). Even the ‘typical seasonal flu’ kills between 12,000 and 61,000 in the United States, per year, since 2010. (2) And this number is taking into account the fact that we have established vaccines (although, due to the nature of the flu virus’ mutations, vaccines are not a 100% guarantee of immunity) and anti-viral medications used to control the effects of the virus. In the United States, seasonal influenza is estimated to result in a total average annual economic cost of over $11 billion, with direct medical costs estimated to be over $3 billion annually. (1)

All this is to say that the flu is no minor affair.

But Covid-19 is not ‘just a bad flu’, because:

1. As mentioned above, we do not yet have any vaccine or anti-viral medication that can be used to treat the Covid-19 virus. The flu has several treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including antiviral drugs such as amantadine and rimantadine (Flumadine), and inhibitors of influenza, such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza). In contrast, the FDA has yet to approve any treatments for COVID-19, although approval for remdesivir, an antiviral initially developed to treat Ebola, is pending.
   
   
2. As Covid-19 is ‘novel’ – meaning it’s a brand new occurrence in human populations – we are not sure of many things in regards to its effect upon humans. There are signs of damage caused by the virus that extend beyond the immediate ‘sick phase’, such as heart/lung/kidney damage. These effects still need to be researched and measured, but we can be sure that we can’t be sure of the long-term effects of contracting the virus.
   
   
3. As of May 18, there have been nearly 90,000 deaths in the U.S.; this is nearly 50% more deaths than caused by the flu and the flu season is typically 6 months long and Covid-19 has caused the 90k deaths in 3 months . . . with an unprecedented complete shutdown of travel, business, education, entertainment, and all other social activities. (3)
   
   
4. COVID-19 has been linked to a rare but serious inflammatory syndrome in children, called “pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome”. New York City has confirmed 100 cases of the syndrome in children. (4)
   
   
5. The fatality rate of the seasonal flu is about 0.1%, whereas best current estimates place Covid-19 fatality rates at about 0.6%. This means, based on admittedly estimated information, is about 6 times more fatal than the flu. (5)
   
   
6. Covid-19 has a longer incubation period (where someone has contracted the virus and can spread it to others) than the flu and has much higher transmission rates. The measure scientists use to determine how easily a virus spreads is known as the "basic reproduction number," or R0 (pronounced R-nought). This is an estimate of the average number of people who catch the virus from a single infected person. The flu has an R0 value of about 1.3, according to The New York Times. (6) Researchers are still working to determine the R0 for COVID-19. Preliminary studies estimated an R0 value for the new coronavirus to be between 2 and 3, and potentially as high as 6. (7)
   
   
7. This means that not only won’t a person spread Covid-19 to more other people for longer, but that these infections could overload the ability of the medical industry to handle the cases – causing the fatality rates *for any cause* to skyrocket due to lack of doctors, beds, ventilators, medications, etc. New York State has – without temporary beds set up in convention centers, hospital ships, etc. – 53,000 hospital beds and 3,000 ICU units (8) for a population of nearly 20 million (about 8.5 million live in NYC).

To answer the question in a sentence:

"No, Covid-19 is not 'just like the flu', because it's a completely new virus that spreads longer and faster than the flu, kills at a far higher rate than the flu - even with total and unprecedented shutdowns in human activity - without any specific medical treatment or vaccine, that has potential long-term effects that we aren't sure of yet."

So, wash your hands and wear your masks when you can't social distance yourself from others/in public. :)

Sources:

1. Putri WC, Muscatello DJ, Stockwell MS, Newall AT (June 2018). "Economic burden of seasonal influenza in the United States". Vaccine. 36 (27): 3960–66. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2018.05.057. PMID 29801998.
2. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
3. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html
5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/antibody-tests-support-whats-been-obvious-covid-19-is-much-more-lethal-than-flu/2020/04/28/2fc215d8-87f7-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
6. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html
7. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762510 and https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article?deliveryName=USCDC_333-DM25287
8. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/23/820150795/cuomo-orders-all-hospitals-to-add-beds-as-new-york-confirms-20-000-coronavirus-c