Certainly that is true, which is one of the things that makes the toilet paper rush so dumb, it ain't a gastro thing people!
But this similarity can obscure the differences. Same as claims that common flu is more deadly. Regarding transmission, basically they transmit the same, because they are both respiratory viruses, however information gathered so far indicates the Covid19 virus itself behaves quite differently from seasonal influenza (resulting in differences relating to; incubation period, asymptomatic transmission, reacquirement, etc). Part of the point there is that Covid19 is still new, and there are yet too many unknowns. Hopefully by the end of the year it is just a bad memory and the total death count is under 10,000 people, but even the experts who are at ground zero in terms of researching and understanding this virus can't yet tell us in detail about the virus like they can with seasonal flu.
In terms of lethality, this is also difficult to gauge with certainty. Even when it comes to seasonal flu the numbers can be misleading. You'd think it would be simple right? Divide the number of infections by number of deaths, bam, you have lethality percentage. Problem number one is what counts as "infected"? This is actually a problem with judging lethality for common flu, because not everyone who contracts flu (especially those who get the mildest cases) ends up reporting/getting counted. The most thorough data on seasonal flu lethality has it under 1%. Most recent estimates for the new virus have it at around 3.5%. So in terms of lethality the new virus might be four times more deadly, but again, it is NEW, and there isn't enough reliable data yet.
Two other major differences that get obscured when someone says "common flu is much more deadly" are that unlike the new virus, vaccines come out every year for the flu, and that unlike the new virus, many of us already have antibodies in our systems that can fight seasonal flu. I've had pneumonia twice so I get my flu shot for free. Vaccines are a highly effective (though not perfect) barrier against illness. Many people get infected by flu but due to past exposure have antibodies that fight the infection. There is NO vaccine for the new virus, and it is a new virus therefore no one has past exposure, that means the only way to fight it is containment.
Add to that the possibility that the new virus could mutate and become something with a higher lethality than it already has.
Hopefully it doesn't infect many more people, hopefully containment works. But containment has to happen now, because if infection rates become widespread the new virus will quickly become more deadly than seasonal flu in raw numbers, not just lethality rates. Governments and health authorities aren't going to wait for that to happen before they act, because otherwise they will be asked "why didn't you do something?". Better to come out of this a year from now with limited impact and people out there saying to them "why did you react so strongly, the virus did almost nothing".
Bottom line, anyone who says this is a media beat up doesn't understand what is really going on.
