Seasonal flu mortality rate is 0.1, COVID-19 is 3.4%. SARS was 10%. Thus, COVID19 is much closer to SARS than the flu.
Total deaths from COVID19 is 3500, vs. 800 for SARS.
Total infected from COVID19 is over 100k, while 8k for SARS.
All these point to much greater global concern from COVID19...