Posted on 05/03/2020 6:50:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In order to analyze the development and mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic, we naturally look back to the most prominent global pandemic of modern times: the Spanish flu of 1918. The virus wreaked havoc around the world a century ago, leaving tens of millions of dead bodies in its wake, including more than half a million Americans at a time when our population was less than a third of today’s level.
While it is reasonable to acknowledge the broad fact that even more lives would have been lost had it not been for social distancing interventions in 1918, as we now consider how to lift similar restrictions currently imposed, we need a more nuanced understanding of when, where, and how social distancing prevailed a century ago, as well as when, where, and how it did not.
Based upon data of the Spanish flu pandemic, general consensus has emerged around a strong correlation between proactive measures and a lower death toll; the contrast between Philadelphia and St. Louis in 1918 has become ubiquitous. First referenced in an academic journal some 13 years ago, it has been featured regularly in analyses and articles over the past 2 months as a lesson on how American society should treat a pandemic.
The story goes like this:
Philadelphia (at the time the third largest city in America behind only New York and Chicago) downplayed the severity of the Spanish flu and went ahead with a World War I victory parade (really part of a public relations campaign supporting a war-bond drive) and gathered over 200,000 people at the end of September. Within a week, 2,600 people had died and city hospitals were overflowing. By the time the city reacted and started closing down public gatherings, which lasted for 4-5 weeks, it was already too late
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Ultimately, there is one unescapable conclusion that must be acknowledged when using 1918 as a blueprint for today. Only the completely delusional would conclude that the COVID-19 epidemic is as deadly as the Spanish flu. In fact, it’s a whole order of magnitude less so.
The Spanish flu claimed 675,000 American lives out of a population of 106.5 million (6,338 deaths per million), whereas COVID-19, even in the current worst-case IHME projection, will barely exceed 5% that figure: 114,000 deaths out of 331 million, or 344 deaths per million. The more likely middle projection of ~74,000 deaths would yield a rate of only 223 per million, which is proportionally less than Spain, France, Italy, and the UK. Of the large EU states, only Germany will have fared better.
Said otherwise, the Spanish flu’s death rate of 6,338 deaths per million is almost as high as the total death rate in America today, which is 8,638 per million. We are not talking apples and oranges, but apples and watermelons.
When smaller, less densely populated states consider how to proceed, this data should not be lost on them. As mentioned earlier, over 20% of the entire nationwide death toll of COVID-19 belongs to New York City. A century ago, New York was also the most populous city and had the highest death toll.
But New York’s deaths accounted for less than 4% of the total. The top 20 cities during the Spanish flu had an combined death rate of just under 5,000 per million. The rest of the country was at about 6,600 per million. Compare that to COVID-19, in which the top 20 cities have a combined death rate of 507 per million, versus the rest of the country at approximately 150 per million.
Not only is the disease an order of magnitude less deadly overall, but rural communities are much, much, safer than they were in 1918.
Depends on how long it lasts. If we need to deal with this permanently then the body count is going to pile up.
The most interesting difference between the Spanish Flu and the COVID-19 pandemic is the marked difference in the victim profile. The Spanish Flu was a much greater existential threat to the human species. the mortality rate was much higher in young, vibrant people who did not fulfill their procreative potential. Older people sickened but tended to recover. The culling of those expected to procreate and the loss of some of the genetic pool probably weakens the species ability to thrive and survive. COVID-19 is killing mostly elderly and the impaired.
Plus we have a greater lock down on CV than we did on the spanish flu. We also have far better medical care.
It's hard to say what the CV death toll would look like if we responded the same way we did in 1918 and with the same medical care. But the toll would be a lot higher than it is now.
Hot weather is going to dampen this soon.
Pile-up is a pretty strong set of words. That sounds like thousands of deaths day.
And the use of the word if is what has destroyed our economy in the first place.
I know it sounds crazy but how about we all start living again and let the elderly and sick stay at home. Those who live with them could take extra precautions.
I’m a worrier but even I’m not worried about this virus.
I can’t even find the average age of death anymore or how many people under 70 that died were already sick because nobody wants to print it
Believe me if it was ebola I’d be hiding in my basement with a gun it’s not
It still looks like the virulence of the totalitarian cure is going to cause a lot more damage than Wu-Flu.
I see the CDC is very quietly revising the numbers very sharply downward. If this gets wide coverage there will be riots in the streets of the Blue Cities.
This is Bernard Goldberg discussing the media’ coverage of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s:
“So the activists did what they felt they had to do. They got the word out that it would spread to all of us. And the media passed it along to America, at first because they didn’t know better, then because they thought that heterosexual AIDS was a better story, but eventually because it was another way to show compassion.
So we showed people with AIDS on television and never bothered to say they were gay. We showed straight suburbanites with AIDS and never bothered to ask if they shot drugs into their veins or had sex with people who did.”
Nowadays, it seems that the media are not bothering to discuss peoples’ ages or hygienic habits (or lack thereof) or if they exercised any other specific care or discretion during these times. It is about having that better story or means to frighten people.
My husbands grandmother lost her husband (late 30’s and healthy) and infant child back then. Covid doesn’t seem to affect the young like this did. He was a shop owner who fixed and made shoes ( his business card says “with electricity”)!
Well we do have more than 67,000 dead already. That’s about 2,000 per day.
We have no idea if that would be the case or not. If they hadn't closed just some of the subway trains in NYC, we wouldn't have concentrated more riders into smaller spaces, and might have avoided the whole NYC/NJ explosion that is dominating the country's death toll.
Not really. Spanish Flu killed young people, too. CCV doesn’t. Regular Flu (legacy from 1918 spanish flu) has killed more kids THIS YEAR than CCV.
There are mass grave through out the US from 1918-19 with whole families in them. Skinny, healthy families.
The average age of CCV death is 76. There are 10X more 70+ year olds in the US today than in 1918. If 1918 Flu happened today We’d already be at nearly 1,000,000 dead, due to 2020 population demographics.
If they hadn’t sent sick people back to nursing homes, that could prevented at least 25% of NY’s deaths.
I wish we knew which numbers to believe. 37k to almost 70k by the SAME organization on 2 different websites isn’t very comforting!!
But yeah you’re right. I guess it could pile to a few hundred thousand.
This virus is a ####ing bully. Killing the old and the sick.
That CA politician that quit because he said the virus was killing the people we needed to get rid of anyway was crazy.
Maybe in many of us there is that second of thought that ‘hey this can solve some problems”. For a second, and then sanity and being Christian return and one thinks straight again.
Because where does that thinking end?
I’m 52 but i’m a fat ####. Killing me would likely save a fortune for the country in the long run...
eugenics is the slipperiest slope ever
“Not only is the disease an order of magnitude less deadly overall, but rural communities are much, much, safer than they were in 1918.”
Nice summation and presentation of data. REFRESHING!
“Well we do have more than 67,000 dead already. That’s about 2,000 per day.”
That’s worldometer’s Covid-death count, the CDC numbers released May 1st are about half of that. 33,000+.
I REALLY don’t like that there is the appearance of cooking the books on the death-count. Documented in NY, PA and CA. That tells you it is NOT about the illness, it’s something else.
Name one virus in the history of the human species that had a “permanent” level of high mortality. Just one.
And yet, he still say to “follow all the federal guidelines”.
He made a great case, then wimped out at the end.
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