Influenza vs Covid-19

I've been asked why corona gets more attention than the flu.
The flu has killed more people at the moment, true.

The flu: we know what we are dealing with.
We also know the way it spreads.
We also know how to deal with it, therapy wise.
We can vaccinate risk groups, and we do.
We can vaccinate professional careworkers, we do.
We can vaccinate care volunteers, we do.
And people built resistance. Even more, they have it.
Less people who are infected die from flu. (Between 1-2% overall)
And we have some antivirals that work in almost all people.
We even know which bacteria are associated with flu cases, so we can prevent people dying from this when they are seriously ill.

Corona, Covid-19, is a complete different story.
Maybe in the future it will be less dangerous than the flu, but right now we're dealing with a complete different scenario.

The only prevention we know is washing your hands, keep metal surfaces clean, and keep your cough and sneeze more than 2 metres away from another person.
Facemasks don't work, some people even self infect because they don't know how to handle a facemask, or use the wrong one and feel safe, whereas they put themselves in more danger.

We don't really know what we are dealing with.

Is it one virus or are there already mutations?

We don't have true prevention, but handwash and isolation.
We don't have vaccinations, so we can't prevent outbreaks among high risk groups, so we can not prevent careworkers (professional and volunteers) to get ill and die. We are even afraid careworkers might spread the disease. Quite some careworkers died.
We have no therapy at all. Some publications talk about succesful medication combinations but they can't be replicated. So when people are ill medication is just a try... costs time, and this might even make the person more ill.
We don't even know if people get resistant, as there are reports of people testing negative after recovery and later testing positive again (which might be a flaw of the test..and I hope so, otherwise we're facing really big big problems!)
People forget the enormous implications from flu. Last year some areas were flooded by flue, lots of surgeries had to be cancelled, for instance, because of staff shortage.
As we can't prevent Corona entering hospitals we have seen the same happening in a more serious way: hospitals at lock down.
People are asked to work at home or stay at home when they have the slightest sign of cough, sneeze, and breathlessness. This is disrupting the economy.
Public life and services might come to a stand still, because of the many infected people.

And for those telling me that the risk of dying is lower than flu.
This is not true.
The risk of dying for healthy people is maybe less than flu, but for people with certain illnesses and a higher age it's higher.
We don't know anything about the risk for pregnant women and their unborn babies.

Add to it that there are not enough tests, so many people go on with their lives without knowing they are infected and spread infection and I think that sarcastic remarks and carelessness are completely out of place.

I hope you stay well.

Update: Pneumonia patients in The Netherlands that won't react on conventional therapy are also tested.