Why do you think random tweets are a good source of information?
First off, the CDC only estimated 61,000 flu deaths in 2018. You're probably looking at an early projection or some shyt that the Republicans are just amplifying for the sake of exaggeration. And that was the worst year in a really long time.
Burden of Influenza
Second of all, that's a ESTIMATE, not the measured number. They only measured a fraction of that. Since they've already directly measured nearly 190,000 coronavirus deaths, the true estimate for corona would likely be around 250,000 to 300,000 deaths. It's been FAR worse than even the worst flu season.
Finally, the whole language of comparing death tolls is ridiculous because these are ADDITIONAL deaths. It's not like the corona deaths replaced flu deaths, we actually had a bad flu season this year with more death than normal. Think about it like this - there are about 40,000 gun deaths in the USA every year. Imagine if one year we suddenly had a gun violence epidemic and there were an EXTRA 40,000 more deaths above and beyond the normal count. That would be a big fukking deal, right?
No one would be stupid enough to say, "But we always have 40,000 gun deaths every year, what's an extra 40,000 more?"