The population gain is from 200 to 330 million not an order of magnitude.
That was an unusually lethal influenza year, roughly 60,000 excess deaths over expected, or if we adjust for population, about 100,000 excess deaths.
We all had apparently zero resistance to COVID 19. 600,000 > 100,000. And of course 1968 is a while back. I was a kid.
This is worse than 1968, but a lot. 1918 was worse than this, by a lot.