COVID-19 - data & numbers
If you can read German; there is more information in German on available and prospective vaccines against COVID-19 on this page: " Covid 19: Impfungen"
Information on available and prospective therapies to treat active illness from COVID-19 in German language can be found on this page: "Covid 19: Therapie"

The infection mortality of COVID-19 varies from country to country.
All the calculated and heavily published key figures, which are supposed to help us assess the risks adherent to that hitherto unknown disease, are actually not very helpful.
Whether one uses "R" or "R0" or "CFR" or "IFR" - all these values depend on a lot of basic conditions and are not invariate parameters and are also not inherent qualities of the virus causing this disease. They do not work in a way that will allow classification or objective comparison of risk across time or countries.
The values of R, R0, CFR, and IFR change depending on the spreading conditions and the "disease-promoting" factors prevailing in a country, region, or population group.
Within a country, region, or population group, changes in these characteristic values do indicate real changes in epidemic Events, however. They are just not well suited to depict the "dangerousness" or "lethality" of the disease in comparison with other infectious diseases that tend to be epidemic, such as influenza ("flu").

Excess mortality - deaths from all causes in comparison to previous years

Our World in data now has excess mortality results for many countries: This Link leads to a comparison between the countries Bolivia, Colombia, Egypt, Paraguay, United Kingdom, United States, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. The graph displays excess mortality as shown by the numbers of weekly or monthly deaths in 2020–2021 as they differ in percentage from the average number of deaths in the same period over the years 2015–2019.

A more direct view of the numbers for single countries is also available on Our World in Data: Excess mortality: Raw number of deaths from all causes compared to projection based on previous years. This graphic displays the number of weekly or monthly deaths in 2020–2021 in comparison with the number of deaths in the same period over the years 2015–2019.

Our World in Data can also differentiate some of the available excess mortality data by age groups. Excess mortality during COVID-19: Deaths from all causes compared to previous years, by age is a graphic that shows clearly, that it was not only over 85's who died from Covid-19. One can check the age-distribution of excess mortality for a lot of countries and do direct comparisons, like Excess mortality by ages groups - UK vs. Sweden. This graphic shows, that for the age group 15 to 64, Sweden had very little or no excess mortality, whereas for the United Kingdom, the data show significant excess mortality.
A direct comparison of excess mortality in the UK vs. Germany gives even more pronounced results for that age group: where Germany had practically no discernible excess mortality in that age group, UK suffered very visible excess mortality among people aged 15 to 64 years of age.

On the other hand, a comparison between Excess mortality by age groups: UK vs. Bulgaria shows that some countries, like Bulgaria, fared significantly worse than the UK regarding deaths even in younger age groups…

An Impression of "what happened and what's happening" in terms of "real mortality" in Europe, can also be derived from a visit to the pages of the European Mortality Monitoring Project. There one can see that, undoubtedly, people were dying from Covid-19; not just "with it".

Oh, and if you want, you can also check for vaccination percentages of the respective countries, as Our World in Data has that, too.

Comparisons and data from the beginning of the Covid-19-pandemic

Following some simple stats on proven infections and deaths, some of them in comparison to "flu/influenza", which, I hope, can help to put the Situation into some perspective.

Selected European countries (alphabetically):

Belgium:

Normal mortality: Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 9.71
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 9,710
Average number of deaths per day 311
Average number of deaths per month 9,330
Average number of deaths per year (11.6 million inhabitants) : 113,615.

The population density in Belgium is 383 per Km2 (991 people per mi2)
The median age in Belgium is 41.9 years.
(Source: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/belgium-population/; Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Belgium)

Corona / Covid-19 in Belgium:

Excess deaths:
(Sources: www.who.int/data/sets/global-excess-deaths-associated-with-covid-19-modelled-estimates; ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-covid?country=USA~RUS~MEX~BRA~IRN~PER)
For 2022 the estimate is ongoing.
In 2021, according to WHO. Belgium lost between 15,300 and 20,300 extra persons who, without the pandemic, wouldn't have died.
2020, the first year of the pandemic, brought between 15,300 and 18,600 excess deaths.

Deaths per million:
Corona deaths through April 30, 2022: 2,664.73 per million (= 30,2022 total deaths through this date)
Corona deaths through Feb. 08, 2021: 1,848.46 per million (= 21,423 total deaths through this date)
Corona deaths until December 31, 2020: 1,684.96 per Million (= 19,528 deaths altogether)

(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~BEL; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~BEL)
As of the turn of the year 2020 into 2021, Belgium had lost app. 0.15 % of it's entire population to Covid-19. By the beginning of the year 2021 the proportion of population deaths was moving towards 0.2 % of the Belgian population. (one has to bear in mind that recorded numbers for the 31st of December and the following days were most probably grossly underestimated due to holiday-effects on reporting.)

Belgians numbers were fairly high and probably among the highest in the world at the beginning of the pandemic. Some discussion went on about the ways of counting Covid-19-deaths in Belgium, since in the beginning they did not rely on testing-verified diagnosis. There is an informative article about Belgium's Corona Crisis on Wikipedia.

The Washington Post had an article in May 2020 about the Belgian numbers.

On October 26, 2020, Reuters reported that the Belgian authorities corrected some of their reported death numbers. This did lead to a reduction of just 121 cases overall - so maybe the reported numbers were off in the beginning, but not really way off.

The Guardian reported on Belgiums Covid-19 numbers on Fri 30 Oct. 2020.
On September 30, 2020, Belgiums Covid-numbers were also discussed on the Euronews Webpages.

OurWorldinData leaves little doubt that Belgium did, indeed, suffer from a very high level of excess mortality especially at the pandemics beginning: Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, Belgium

The development of death rates in Belgium since the pandemics beginning can be followed on a separate graph.


Czech Republic

Normal mortality: Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 10.7
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 10,700
Average number of deaths per day 317
Average number of deaths per month 9,510
Average number of deaths per year (10.7 million inhabitants) : 115,605.

The population density in Czechia is 139 per Km2 (359 people per mi2).
The median age in Czechia is 43.2 years.

(Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/czech-republic-population; https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/czech-republic-population/; Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Czech_Republic)

Corona / Covid-19 in. Czechia

Figures as of April 2022:
Corona deaths through April 30, 2022: 3,744.21 per million (= 40,155 total deaths through this date)

2021 figures:
Corona deaths through Dec. 30, 2021: 3,362.47 per million (= 36,129 total deaths through this date)

2020 figures:
Corona deaths until December 29, 2020: 1,055.38 per million (= 11,302 deaths altogether)
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?time=latest&country=~CZE; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?time=latest&country=~CZE)

According to OurWorldinData, Czech Republic did not have unambiguously significant excess mortality until the 20th September 2020. The mortality curve shot up, however, after that - by October 25 - there was very clear excess mortality: Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, Czech Republic
Until September 20, 2020, excess mortality in the Czech Republic did not go up higher than that seen in 2018 - presumably caused by the seasonal flu of that time. After September 20, things changed dramatically, and the mortality curve went steeply upwards
This can also be seen on the timeline of the development of Covid19-mortailty in Czechia: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&minPopulationFilter=1000000&country=~CZE&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc.


France:

Normal mortality: Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 9.1
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 9,100
Average number of deaths per day 1,697
Average number of deaths per month 50,910
Average number of deaths per year (65.55 million inhabitants) : 619,405.

The population density in France is 119 per Km2 (309 people per mi2).
The median age in France is 42.3 years.

(Sources: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/france-population/; https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/france-population; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France)

Influenza mortality in France:

During the Hong Kong flu of 1969/70, France was one of the most severely affected countries. According to an NTV article (https://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Hongkong-Grippe-toetete-Hunderttausende-article21760324.html) 31,000 people died of the Hong Kong flu in France at that time.

Corona / Covid-19 in France:

Figures as of April 2022:
Corona deaths through April 30, 2021: 2,165.45 per million (= 145,999 total deaths through that date)

2021 figures:
Corona deaths through Dec. 31, 2021: 1,836.27 per million (= 123,805 total deaths through that date)

2020 figures:
Corona deaths until December 31, 2020: 958.8 per million (= 64,644 deaths altogether)
Like several other European nations, about the turn of 2020/2021, France had lost about 1 per mille of its population to Covid-19.

(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~FRA; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~FRA)

OurWorldinData gives a view on Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, France. Caution here: The data for France are severely lagging back in time; so the excess mortality graph is not very informative regarding the current situation!


Germany:

Side note: Information on Germany is a bit more detailed because I happen to live here.

Normal mortality:
Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 11
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 11,300
Average number of deaths per day 2,465
Average number of deaths per month 82,000
Average number of deaths per year (83 million inhabitants) : 937,000.

The population density in Germany is 240 per Km2 (623 people per mi2).
The median age in Germany is 45.7 years. When comparing the "success" of Germany's containment measures, one should keep in mind the relative population density and generally older age of the population.

Corona / Covid-19 in Germany:

Excess deaths
For 2022 the estimate is ongoing.
According to the WHO, Germany lost between an estimated extra 113,900 and 144,000 persons in 2021.
Approxiations of some demographers are quite lower. The german ifo-institute, for example, estimated the number of excess deaths from the start of the pandemic until the end of 2021 to be around 96,200.
According to the WHO, the first year of the pandemic brought between approximately between 47.000 and 85.000 excess deaths in Germany.
In spite of the diverging calculations, the numbers do make clear that Germany has experienced quite significant "excess mortality" during the pandemic - irrespective of any false death-causality attributions.

Deaths per million
The rate of Corona deaths per million through April 30, 2022 in Germany was 1,615.54 (= 135,461 total deaths through this date). In other words - for the the years 2020 to 2021, Germany saw a number of Covid-related-deaths that amounted to more than one tenth of the "normal" yearly death rate of 11,300.
The rate of Corona deaths per million through December 31, 2021, in Germany was 1,334.02 per million (= 111,925 total deaths through this date).
Up to December 31, 2020, the rate of Corona deaths was calculated to be around 394.17 per million (= 33,071 deaths altogether).
This means that the influenza death toll of 2017/2018 had been overtaken by the end of 2020 already.
Until December 3, 2020, the "corona death rate" in Germany was 216 per million - or 18,097 deaths altogether. Within just 3 weeks the death rate as well as the number of deaths had grown by almost 50%.
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~DEU; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~DEU)

According to OurWorldinData, compared with the number of deaths in the same week over the previous five years (2015–2019), Germany started to experience real and significant excess mortality by the end of 2020, as the graphic "Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, Germany" shows.
The development of deaths due to Covid-19 in Germany can be visalized here: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&minPopulationFilter=1000000&country=~DEU&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc.

Influenza mortality in Germany:

According to Wikipedia (Wikipedia (en): Hong Kong flu), in the aftermath of the Hong Kong flu in 1969/70, an excess mortality of about 60,000 deaths was recorded for East and West Germany.
That corresponded to approximately about 650 deaths per every million Germans at the time.
The seasonal flu 2017/18 killed at least 25,100 Germans, which would correspond to a rate of about 302 deaths per million Germans. This is only a small fraction of the "normal death rate" in Germany, of Germanys yearly 11,300 deaths per million.
(The figure of 25,100 excess deaths can be found in the RKI Seasonal Report 2018/2019; https://influenza.rki.de/Saisonberichte/2018.pdf; german language only)
Contrary to my own personal memory (I don't remember anything special regarding the winter 2017/18) however, the seasonal flu 2017/18 in Germany pushed the german health care system to its limits in many places. Following are just two examples of newspaper articles from the time of this flu season (written in german, obviously):

This is probably all the more interesting since Germany's health care system is considered to be one of the the best health care systems in the world and Germany possess an extraordinary number of intensive care beds.


Italy:

Normal mortality: Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 9.1
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 12,500
Average number of deaths per day 1,788
Average number of deaths per month 53,640
Average number of deaths per year (60.2 million inhabitants) : 652,620.

The population density in Italy is 206 per Km2 (532 people per mi2).
The median age in France is 47.3 years.

(Sources: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/italy-population/; https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/italy-population; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Italy)

Corona / Covid-19 in Italy:

Figures as of April 2022:
Corona deaths by 30.04.2022: 2,708,53 per million (= 77,291 total deaths by that date)

2021 figures:
Corona deaths by 31.12.2021: 2,276.09 per million (= 77,291 total deaths by that date)

2020 figures:
Corona deaths until December 31, 2020: 1,228.46 per million (= 74,159 deaths altogether)
Italy had already joined the ranks of countries that have lost more than 1 per mille of their population to Covid-19 by the end of 2020.

(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?time=latest&country=~ITA; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?time=latest&country=~ITA)

Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, Italy.

Spain:

Figures as of January 2021:
Corona cases by 08/01/2021: 43,853.48 per million (= 2.05 million total cases by this date)
Corona deaths by 08.01.2021: 1,109.49 per million (= 51,874 total deaths by this date).
By about the turn of 2020/2021, Spain had lost about 1 per mille of its population to Covid-19.

2020 figures:
Corona cases until December 19, 2020: 38,439.62 per million (= 1.8 Mio. cases altogether)
Corona deaths until December 19, 2020: 1,046.44 per million (= 48,926 deaths altogether)
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?time=latest&country=~ESP; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?time=latest&country=~ESP)
See also: Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, Spain

Sweden:

Normal mortality:
Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 9
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 9,000
Average number of deaths per day: 246
Average number of deaths per month: 7,400
Average number of deaths per year (10.5 million inhabitants) : 90,000

The population density in Sweden is 25 per Km2 (64 people per mi2).
The median age in Sweden is 41.1 years.
(Sources: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/sweden-population; https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sweden-population/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden)

Corona / Covid-19 in Sweden:

Figures as of April 2022:
Corona deaths through April 30, 2021: 1,847.61 per million (= 18,772 total deaths through this date)

2021 figures:
Corona deaths through December 31, 2021: 1,506.87 per million (= 15,310 total deaths through this date)

2020 figures:
Corona deaths until December 31, 2020: 858.94 per million (= 8,727 deaths altogether) - By the end of December 2020 the Covid-mortality had added a number of deaths that was approximately equal to almost one tenth of the “normal” annual deaths in Sweden. So far the numbers also show that 2020 was apparently the worst year for Sweden regarding deaths form Covid-19.
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~SWE; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~SWE )

According to OurWorldinData, Sweden suffered from quite a bit of excess mortality from the beginning of March until the end of May 2020: Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, Sweden.

Sweden has been and continues to be criticized from various quarters for taking less stringent measures than its European neighbors. The measures were somewhat gentler on the country's economy than those taken in Germany, for example. The difference in terms of economic damage compared to other EU countries is clearly there; but is not huge. In Sweden the gross national product had fallen by 8.6% at the end of August in 2020 (https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/schweden-dramatisch-aber-weniger-schlimm-als-anderswo-ld.1570130) ; in Germany by 10.1% (https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2020/07/PD20_287_811.html). For the entire EU, the Spiegel on 12th of August 2020, reported a loss of economic output of 12% for the second quarter of 2020 (https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/schweden-hat-die-wirtschaft-besser-geschuetzt-als-die-menschen).

The development in Sweden compared to Belgium and the United Kingdom and some other countries who took down their whole societies into a so-called "lockdown" one or more times shows at least, that the cumulative death numbers (per million of the population!) are on overall somewhat lower than in these other countries; although they were of course significantly higher than in other Scandinavian countries (not included here) - and the cumulative death toll was, until now, also significantly higher than e.g. in Germany).

United Kingdom:

Normal mortality:
Mortality rate (annual) per 1000: around 10.3
Mortality rate (annual) per million: around 10,300
Average number of deaths per day 1,765
Average number of deaths per month 52,950
Average number of deaths per year (68.55 million inhabitants): 644,225.

The population density in the United Kingdom is 281 per Km2 (727 people per mi2).
The median age in the United Kingdom is 40.5 years.

Influenza in the United Kingdom, according to figures from Public Health England (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/839350/Surveillance_of_influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2018_to_2019-FINAL.pdf#page49):
Influenza deaths: between 1,692 in the 2018/19 season - and 28,330 influenza deaths in the 2014/15 season - an average rate of about 435 influenza deaths per million inhabitants in 2014/15.

Corona / Covid-19 in the UK:

Figures as of April 2022:
Corona deaths through April 30, 2022: 2,566.9 per million (= 175,081 total deaths through this date)

2021 figures:
Corona deaths through December 31, 2021: 2,189.87 per million (= 148,737 total deaths through this date)

2020 figures:
Corona deaths until December 31, 2020: 1,078.61 per million (= 73,569 deaths altogether)
Just before the end of the year 2020, the UK had lost about 1 per mille of its population to Covid-19.

(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~GBR; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~GBR)
Side note: In Great Britain, economic output fell by just over 20% in the context of the corona epidemic (https://www.dw.com/de/die-britische-wirtschaft-bricht-ein/a-54536136). The fact that the British did not initially take any serious anti-corona measures has at least not benefitted the economy. However, side effects of Brexit may play a role here.

OurWorldinData reports significant excess mortality for England and Wales in 2020: Excess mortality during COVID-19: The raw number of deaths from all causes compared to previous years, England & Wales.
According to OurWorldinData, compared with the number of deaths in the same week over the previous five years (2015–2019), the United Kingdom as a whole experienced real and significant excess mortality already around the middle of April 2020: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-death-count?country=~GBR.

The trend in COVID-19 deaths in the United Kingdom can be visualized using the daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million People. The trajectory of this curve does not demonstrate significantly reduced mortaility for the second corona wave compared to that of March/April in the United Kingdom - it shows, however, that by the end of January, the death numers started to fall.


Selected Non-European countries (alphabetically):

Australia:

Corona cases until December 27, 2020: 1,111.26 per million (= 28,337 cases altogether)
Corona deaths until December 27, 2020: 35.65 per million (= 909 deaths altogether)
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~AUS; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~AUS)


Japan:

Corona cases until December 19, 2020: 1,556.14 per million (= 196,815 cases altogether)
Corona deaths until December 19, 2020: 21.73 per million (= 2,749 deaths altogether)
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?time=latest&country=~JPN; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?time=latest&country=~JPN)

Although Japan did not implement a general lockdown, it took very tough measures overall: Non-Japanese were not allowed to enter the country for months; in October 2020, only business travelers were readmitted; tourists were still excluded. States of emergency were declared in many cities or regions. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the world's third-largest economy before Germany fell in the second quarter of this year - projected for the year as a whole - by 28.1 percent in real terms, as reported by ARD on September 8, 2020 (https://boerse.ard.de/anlagestrategie/konjunktur/rekordeinbruch-in-japan100.html).
Background article on the Japanese infection and mortality figures: BBC World News from 4.07.2020: Coronavirus: Japan's mysteriously low virus death rate: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53188847
(Further information from Japan in English language: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/liveblogs/news/coronavirus-outbreak-updates/)

A graphical comparison of the development of COVID-19-related deaths in Japan in comparison to the United Kingdom, Belgium and Sweden is quite revealing:


United States:

Normal mortality:
Mortality rate per 1000: around 8.6
Average number of deaths per day: 7,159
Average number of deaths per month: 214,767
Average number of deaths per year (331 million inhabitants) : 2,810,000

Flu in the USA:

Influenza in the USA, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html):
Influenza cases: between 9 and 45 million cases per year
Influenza deaths: between 12,000 and 61,000 deaths per year.
These figures (max. 61,000 deaths from influenza) result in a quota of a maximum of about 184 deaths per million U.S. Americans due to influenza in a "regular" influenza season.
According to an article in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/health/flu-deaths-vaccine.html), 80,000 Americans died of the flu in the flu season 2017/18. This results in a calculated average of 241 deaths per million Americans for the flu season 2017/18.

Corona / Covid-19 in the USA:

Figures as of February 2021:
Corona cases by Feb. 14, 2021: 83,504.72 per million (= 27.64 million total cases by this date)
Corona deaths through Feb. 14, 2021: 1,466.26 per million (= 485,336 total deaths through this date)

Figures as of January 2021:
Corona cases by January 08, 2021: 66,050.15 per million (= 21.86 million total cases by this date)
Corona deaths through January 08, 2021: 1,114.11 per million (= 368,773 total deaths through this date)
Just before 2020/2021, the United States had lost about 1 per mille of its population to Covid-19.

2020 figures:
Corona cases until December 30, 2020: 58,944.65 per million (= 19.51 Mio. cases altogether)
Corona deaths until December 30, 2020: 1,022.84 per million (= 338,561 deaths altogether)

Corona cases through November 9, 2020: 30,125.59 per million (= 9.97 million cases altogether)
Corona deaths through November 9, 2020: 717.73 per million (= 237,572 deaths altogether)

(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-per-million?year=latest&country=~USA; https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-total-confirmed-cases-vs-total-confirmed-deaths?year=latest&country=~USA) One has to bear in mind that the numbers for the last days of the year most probably are a severe underestimate because there was less testing during the holidays and the numbers were, for all we know, also not updated in time.

The Development of deaths due to COVID-19 can be visualized here: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&minPopulationFilter=1000000&country=~USA&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc.
Or here you can see the deaths in the United States in relation to worldwide developments: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=OWID_WRL~USA.

The development of the SARS-COV2-related mortality in the US is visualised here in comparison to the mortaility-time-trend in the United Kingdom.



Personal conclusion

One could of course include more countries in the comparison, but I think that the comparison already shows that COVID-19 did and does play at least in the same league as Asian flu and Hong Kong flu. According to the data that are available now, it seems that the Covid-19-Pandemic was and (still is) worse, regarding the number of casualties.
By the middle of the year 2022, the world wide number of deaths due to the pandemic has been calculated to be more than 6 million people. This ist probably even an underestimation, since not all countries have a very consistent and reliable way of reporting Deaths and not all countries provide data that can be considered reliable. Thus, numbers are probably higher the those reported by OurWorldinData.

With the Asian flu (1957/58; Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957-1958_influenza_pandemic-1958) in Berlin the corpses were temporarily stored in the subway and the garbage workers had to work as auxiliary gravediggers, because the existing morticians were not up to the task. Many schools were also closed - but not out of caution, but because up to two-thirds of the children and teachers were ill.
Some medical historians estimate that up to 4 million people died from Asian flu. (https://www.businessinsider.de/politik/deutschland/asiatische-grippe-die-lehren-der-letzten-grossen-pandemie-fuer-corona/).
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health states an infection mortality rate of 0.4 for Asian flu (https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/de/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/vergangene-epidemien-pandemien/grippepandemie.html).

By the way, there was also a kind of conspiracy theory at that time, some people feared that the Asian flu was the result of the nuclear tests of that period (https://www.bpb.de/geschichte/zeitgeschichte/deutschlandarchiv/310154/debatte-zur-herkunft-der-asiatischen-grippe-1957). After all, the virus had also formed from the genes of "species-different" viruses. There were also theories that the "new" Asian flu virus had come from outer space. 😅
Some similar theories on SARS have also been put forward: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(03)13440-X.
But, although both Asian and Hong Kong flu also caused immense economic damage (entire plants had to be closed, in England there were repeated collapses in the postal and railroad service for months; see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957-1958_influenza_pandemic-1958_influenza_pandemic) people forgot about these pandemics very quickly.

It is fascinating that terrorist attacks with a lot less deaths are remembered much better…

In summary one can deduce from the numbers and the previous knowledge about COVID-19 and the course of the flu pandemics of the 20th century that COVID-19 was/is at least "in the same range of danger" as Asian flu and Hong Kong flu, but most probably it was - and, to the unvaccinated world - still is more "dangerous" than that:
Case numbers and death rates will continue to rise as long as the epidemic/pandemic persists. For practically all countries that provide Public Health figures regarding influenza-mortality, the Covid-19-figures are very distinctly higher than the figures calculated for the worst seasonal flu waves of the respective countries and also above the figures calculated for both major flu pandemics from the second half of the 20th century (Asian and Hong Kong flu).
Only in comparison with the Spanish flu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu) the figures available so far, make Corona/Covid-19 appear comparatively harmless. This relative assessment will in all probability not be changed by the development of the death toll in the further course of the pandemic.

By the way, the Spanish flu was relatively quickly forgotten in most communities after it subsided, perhaps because the memories of war were simply much stronger.
However, the Spanish flu probably had (contrary to what some people have claimed) an infection lethality between 2 % and partly, in some places/regions even 4 %; it probably killed between 25 and 50 or even up to 100 million people worldwide (as some researchers assume). This was really quite different from all flu pandemics since then. And also something different from COVID-19.

Other Wikidot-articles on Covid-19, generally in german:

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