No, it literally is not. The flu is caused by influenza. Covid19 is caused by sars-cov-2, a relative of SARS-CoV which caused SARS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr... ). It is also a (more distant) relative of HCoV-OC43 which is one of the many viruses that cause the cold.
The problems that influenza and sars-cov-2 cause for us are pretty different: Influenza mutates fairly quickly so we're not able to stop it completely with our otherwise highly effective vaccines, while even though they mutate comparatively much slower we don't have any effective drug treatments for coronaviruses: Some are not dangerous enough to have been economically interesting to develop treatments for while others were stopped by non-drug interventions (like the sick people dying too quickly and the detection of fever before the virus was highly communicable).
Interestingly there's a variant that attacks dogs that's a bit more severe and people have actually developed a vaccine for that variant. Well, it might also be that it's a lot easier, regulations wise, to develop a vaccine for dogs than for humans. It works great but your dog has to have a booster every year or two to keep full immunity.
A vaccine has already been developed for cats. It turned out vaccinated cats suffer greater from the nCov due to increased reaction from the immune system.
No, it isn’t. The flu doesn’t require hospitalisation in 15-20% of the cases and doesn’t have a mortality rate of 1% in the best case. Please stop spreading misinformation.
What I have to comment?
We know what is the death rate in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, South Korea. 1500 cases is ridiculously low to take any conclusion, they are far behind the curve.
Then why you post utterly meaningless numbers based on 1500 reported cases far behind the curve and ask for my comment? And please stop insulting me, you have gone too far.
Dr Ioannidis, for one example, thinks that Iceland's numbers are actually representative in contrast to US, Spain, Italy, etc. He's an expert, what reasons do you have to not at least consider his opinion (and many others') as viable?
And it's not my fault that you're so touchy to be insulted by opinions that challenge the ones you hold. There's hardly any valour in throwing downvotes left and right on every post by the person you disagree with either.
You see, only a few months ago for the majority of people the word "flu" was a perferctly fine umbrella term for all of these viruses, including multiple coronaviruses. Now everyone is an expert virusologist with rigorous fervor for miniscule details. This is silly and drives us into the wrong direction, because the actual illness is not very different (it's a fact), but the amount of attention payed to it leads to huge overreaction. Oh, it's a relative of SARS, god forbid, oh my god, we're all going to die! Bullshit.
No, it literally is not. The flu is caused by influenza. Covid19 is caused by sars-cov-2, a relative of SARS-CoV which caused SARS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr... ). It is also a (more distant) relative of HCoV-OC43 which is one of the many viruses that cause the cold.
The problems that influenza and sars-cov-2 cause for us are pretty different: Influenza mutates fairly quickly so we're not able to stop it completely with our otherwise highly effective vaccines, while even though they mutate comparatively much slower we don't have any effective drug treatments for coronaviruses: Some are not dangerous enough to have been economically interesting to develop treatments for while others were stopped by non-drug interventions (like the sick people dying too quickly and the detection of fever before the virus was highly communicable).