On March 11, 2020, Anthony S. Fauci testified before U.S. Congress that the coronavirus from Wuhan, China was ten-times more deadly than the flu: Public Health Lessons Learned From Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation. Dr. Fauci appeared to arrive at his dire prediction by comparing a 1% case fatality rate of coronavirus with a 0.1% infection fatality rate of influenza. Because infections include reported cases as well as asymptomatic and mild to moderate infections that are not reported, there are usually many more infections than cases, and so the infection fatality rate is usually much lower than the case fatality rate. Furthermore, comparing the infection fatality rate of one infectious disease with the case fatality rate of another infectious disease, as Fauci did, makes no sense! Over two years later, evidence from a U.S. seroprevalence study finally proves that Fauci got his prediction wrong...terribly wrong! Seroprevalence of Infection-Induced SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies — United States, September 2021–February 2022 | MMWR (cdc.gov).

The released study measures antibodies in a representative sample of the U.S population to estimate how many people have been infected with COVID-19. The study, conducted between September 2021 and February 2022, reported an infection rate from the omicron variant, which was as high as approximately 58%. With a U.S. population of 332,403,650, a COVID-19 infection rate of 58% involves 192,794,117 infected people.

As of April 26, 2022, there have been 1,018,727 U.S. COVID-19 deaths during the two-year pandemic: United States COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer. Divide this in half to roughly approximate one influenza season, which averages about 509,363.5 deaths. The COVID-19 infection fatality rate is therefore 0.26% (509,363.5 deaths / 192,794,117 infections). This is still about twice as high as influenza (0.1%), but 0.26% could be an overestimation accounted for by the inclusion of deaths with COVID-19 along with deaths from COVID-19.

Nevertheless, even with this very rough approximation, and an inflated COVID-19 death count, results of this U.S. seroprevalence study prove that COVID-19 is nowhere near 10-times more deadly than the flu, as originally claimed by public health authorities like Dr. Fauci. Furthermore, with a proper adjustment of death counts, COVID-19 may still turnout to be no more lethal than what Fauci described as "a severe seasonal influenza." Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted | NEJM.