1/ Okay - I promised an answer, so here goes, quickly.

For several reasons it is not true that "COVID-19 has killed more Americans in six weeks than the flu does in a year." First off, on the most basic level, the flu kills as many as 60,000+ people in some years. https://twitter.com/BStulberg/status/1251894937727102982

2/ The six weeks v. year comparison is also misleading. Flu season is 17-20 weeks, with short in-season peaks. Also, we are coding COVID deaths aggressively, and most people who die are elderly and ill. Knowing how many people died WITH rather than OF COVID is impossible for now.

3/ Thus the best death metric is all-cause mortality. The most recent available statistics show all-cause mortality has not increased in the US this year (in fact it has been lower than normal). Europe has seen a spike in the last couple of weeks, comparable to a bad flu year.

4/ Many recent screens have shown #SARS_CoV2 is far more widely spread than we realized – and thus much less dangerous:
In NY of pregnant women
MA of homeless people and the city of Chelsea
KS, random screening
CA, semi-random screening
GER, random screening
FRA, carrier sailors

5/ Thus we don’t actually know the true infection fatality rate of SARS, but it looks more and more like it will settle in the 0.15% to 0.4% range (and not everyone becomes infected) - or 1.5x to 4x the flu.

6/ That rate will be the same whether or not we have lockdowns – they can slow the spread but not stop it (unless we continue them forever). The initial point of the lockdowns was to save the hospital system, but the hospital system is under no strain. So what is the point now?

7/ By the way, it is increasingly unclear that lockdowns – as opposed to moderate social distancing - work at all, but that’s another thread.

Hope that helps.