Just curious - why did you pick out an article from upstate New York for this?
While waiting for your answer, I did a little research you could have done on your own. For example, the phrase you bolded (it's not bold in the original) "
63,000 deaths from flu" supposedly came from CDC. Clicking on the CDC link given, the numbers there show a range from 24,000 to 62,000. Another interesting factoid from CDC - those deaths resulted from an estimated 39,000,000 to 56,000,000 infections. Using the worst case CDC numbers (62,000 deaths from 39,000,000 infections), the mortality rate is about 0.16% (16 deaths from 10,000 illnesses) - which is pretty typical for the annual flu wave.
It's also interesting to note that the Rochester article says that the flu season is "officially underway", while the reference documents from CDC show that the season started months ago and is pretty much topped out for this year, as it is in most years in April. The annual flu spreads rapidly every year because it is already everywhere. Since health scientists know that influenza strains are endemic in the USA population, we have an ongoing program to develop an effective, low-cost (free in many cases) vaccine tuned every year to the currently evolving strains, and for which there are well-established specific medications with a strong positive response (translation for those whose science education ended with "wash your hands after using the toilet", that means we know how to slow it down and the medicine we have usually makes the sick people well again).
For covid-19, on the other hand, we have (so far) no vaccine and treatments for those infected are still in the experimental stage. Or, following your editorial style,
we have no vaccine and treatments for those infected are still in the experimental stage.