This flu (all flu are corona virus)
Influenza is another virus
altogether,
not a "strain" of coronavirus. There are seven types of "human" coronavirus, four considered common. C19 is one of the three less common human coronavirus stains.
So, not only is this virus
completely different than influenza, it is novel.
Very informative article here.
https://www.healthline.com/health/coronavirus-typeshttps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.htmlCommon human coronaviruses:
229E (alpha coronavirus)
NL63 (alpha coronavirus)
OC43 (beta coronavirus)
HKU1 (beta coronavirus)
Other human coronaviruses:
MERS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS)
SARS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS)
SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19)
People around the world commonly get infected with human coronaviruses 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1.
Sometimes coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and make people sick and become a new human coronavirus. Three recent examples of this are 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV.
For what it's worth, the common human coronavirus strains mentioned above
do cause some of the common
colds we get, along with virii called Rhinovirus and another called RSV.
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_causeshttps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.htmlUnfortunately we have historically had very little luck producing successful coronavirus vaccines. Let's hope we have better luck with a vaccine for C19.