Unfortunately this is so new there are no experts on this. Everyone is learning hour by hour in real time and so far the stats we have to go off of are:
Flu: In US about 35 to 45 million cases annually resulting in 300 to 500 thousand hospitalizations and 35,000 to 45,000 deaths.
Covid19: As of this morning approx 115,000 cases worldwide with 4,000 deaths. Can't get rate of hospitalization nailed down enough to post but most I've seen are around 10 to 20 percent.
Quality and quantity of stats on Covid19 aren't up to where we need them yet but tough shit as this is what we have to work with. Based on this and seeing how a country like Italy is on the verge of having it's healthcare system overrun in a manner of days it's gross negligence at best for anyone to claim this is similar to the flu. We won't have the data to say for certain for quite a while but what we do have suggests it's a problem that can over run our medical system easily if precautions aren't taken.
Right now the federal government isn't taking the proper precautions and the leader of the government and his political party are downplaying the threat in spite of the mounting evidence to the contrary. This is just a fact and people can call it what they want.