FReepmail me to get on or off
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
I will make a personal observation from Todos Santos in november, and report back when I get home.
Posted on 09/14/2009 2:12:30 PM PDT by decimon
How so? For one thing, you presented some percentages without any absolute numbers. For another, 500 million infected is quite a number regardless of how many were injured to the point of death. For a third, that's a side issue to the main thesis.
Four years of war, all those people milling around as they’d never milled around in history before; not eating or sleeping too well either. But it’s the wind. In flew Enza! Riiight...
“The flu epidemic of 1918, commonly called the “Spanish Flu,” is believed to be the greatest medical holocaust in history.”
“Holocaust” implies death, not just infection. The mortality rate of the 1918 flu was bad but hardly in the league of the Black Plague or the introduction of Old World diseases to the New World.
You can only give percentage estimates of deaths caused by the Black Plague and the Old World diseases since there are no census numbers to work with.
I’m unclear whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with me.
It is of course true that we don’t have detailed census reports for ancient or medieval times. But there is plenty of evidence to justify the mortalities I estimated for epidemics during this period.
We have quite accurate figures for USA, 600k+ out of a population of 107M, or a death rate of about 0.6%. The 25M to 100M quoted in the article for the entire world is itself an estimate without a great deal more documentation than the mortality rate estimates for the Black Death.
It is true that a whole lot more people got sick with the flu and recovered than with plague. This would, IMO, lessen the impact of the disease, not increase it.
IMO, the impact on a society of an epidemic is much more accurately measured by percentage than by absolute numbers. The social, economic and cultural impact of the Black Death was indisputably much greater than that of the 1919 flu, despite the arguably greater total death toll of the modern epidemic.
My intent was to support you.
Well, thanks then!
“The presently most accepted theory is that the flu started in Haskell County, western KS, and went with a draftee to Ft. Riley in N. Kansas. From there it spread in all directions as soldiers were shipped out. Travel on super-crowded trains and troopships created conditions for transmission about as effective as modern airliners.
“
Yes.
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-deadliest-pandemic-history/dp/0143036491/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252997240&sr=1-1
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
I read Barry’s book. Very interesting. Despite the fact that it wasn’t really the greatest epidemic in history, I sincerely hope we don’t have an equivalent.
We just are not ready for it. The death rate for “Spanish flu” would be much lower today with proper ICU treatment, but we certainly don’t have 20 to 60 million ICU beds!
Not to mention that medical personnel would likely get the disease at the same or even a higher rate.
My take is that pandemic is now the new way to get federal grant money, as Globull warming gets harder to justify.
Agree.
A lot of so-called scientific papers are written by guys or gals who have become fascinated with the wonders of linear or non-linear regression and tend to believe nonsensical results.
Wait a couple of months, someone will rebunk it. Or somethin’...
I didn’t know about the drought in India, but over a million Germans died of malnutrition due to the British Blockade, and 1917 was called the “hunger year” in the UK for the same reason.
And, of course, the climate changes (cooler) in the early 1330-1330 was one reason that the black death killed so many.
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