There is no doubt that influenza is a very troublesome virus. Children younger than 5 years old and those with certain risk factors are at a high risk of developing serious influenza-related complications.

However, to claim that Covid-19 is less severe than influenza is a fallacy. Data proves otherwise.

Covid-19 has caused a devastating number of pediatric deaths in the last 22 months. Public health measures have also successfully obliterated influenza-related pediatric deaths in this time period – so had we not employed public health measures, Covid-19 related deaths would have been even higher.

PS: influenza years are not calendar years (ie they don’t go from Jan to Dec). This is because an influenza year resets in August (which is why you have new annual vaccines come out around then). A peak influenza season typically begins in October of one year and continues into April of the following year.

Source (USA CDC):

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/pedfludeath.html