Well, sure, but the “Spanish” flu (only called that because Spain is the first country severely hit that didn't lie and cover it up because of WWI) was accelerated by both the physical conditions created by WWI and the fact that covering it up to avoid revealing weakness to wartime opponents hampered response in many early-hit countries and obstructed information flow.
It's also nowhere near the HIV/AIDS global epidemic in likely total impact, but it's a lot more acute in it's impact than HIV/AIDS.
Also worth noting that a huge number of names in biology are quite arbitrary and/or accidents of history.
Or tech, for that matter. Fewer and fewer "hard disks" involve any actual disk, and more non-floppy floppy disks were made than actual floppy ones. Etc.
I disagree. It's simply too early to make that determination.
The Spanish Flu had a estimated infection fatality ratio of >2.5% (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979_article). As another commenter pointed out, the COVID-19 IFR is 0.9% in NYC. The difference between 2.5% and 0.9% is only 2.8x. However the IFR is not only underestimated due to the lag between case detection and death, but it's also probably a lot worse in many other parts of the world (third world countries, etc). So it's possible the difference is only 2-fold, which would make both pandemics relatively comparable.
