Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and San Marino contain less than 1% of the world’s population, but they each had a crude death rate increase in 2020 (from a 2019 baseline) of over +2500 per million — which is equivalent to over 10 times the flu death of the worst recent flu (USA 2017/18).
Most of the world saw death increases that would be less than what would be seen if the US flu experience of 2017/18 had been experienced worldwide. The extensive UK database confirmed in Jan 2021 that early variants of COVID were 40-80% worse than severe flu (COVID almost twice as fatal as flu).
Most of the world saw death increases that would be less than what would be seen if the US flu experience of 2017/18 had been experienced worldwide.
The extensive UK database (>50,000 infections, followed meticulously through time) confirmed in Jan 2021 that early variants of COVID were 40-80% worse than severe flu (COVID was almost twice as fatal as flu).
Reference
[Crude death rates by nation and year] — World Bank. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN
[2017/18 flu season led to 79,400 deaths when mid-season (January 2018) US population was 326.216 million, giving an annual flu death rate of 243 deaths per million] -- Rolfes MA, Flannery B, Chung JR, O'Halloran A, Garg S, Belongia EA, Gaglani M, Zimmerman RK, Jackson ML, Monto AS, Alden NB, Anderson E, Bennett NM, Billing L, Eckel S, Kirley PD, Lynfield R, Monroe ML, Spencer M, Spina N, Talbot HK, Thomas A, Torres SM, Yousey-Hindes K, Singleton JA, Patel M, Reed C, Fry AM; US Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness (Flu VE) Network, the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network, and the Assessment Branch, Immunization Services Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Effects of Influenza Vaccination in the United States During the 2017-2018 Influenza Season. Clin Infect Dis. 2019 Nov 13;69(11):1845-1853. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciz075. PMID: 30715278; PMCID: PMC7188082. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7188082/
[As of 19 Jan 2021, from 52,000 COVID infections with Alpha (SGTF) variant, there were 104 deaths, 1 death per 500 Alpha infections (IFR=0.20%)] — UK Technical Briefing #5 (PDF file). Available general: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201