Interesting chart involving the Spanish flu.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

https://ourworldindata.org/spanish-flu-largest-influenza-pandemic-in-history

You are going to have to click on the link to see the chart. To me, it's mind-blowing. Because the Spanish flu killed so many young adults, it greatly impacted life expectancy. Oh, my. Luckily, and you'll also get it from the chart, life expectancy very quickly recovered. Which is good news. I think.

Oh, and you'll also notice that WWII had a similar, if not quite so sharp, impact on life span.

If, on the other hand, the current corona virus continues to mainly kill the elderly, as sad as that it, the impact on life expectancy will be almost unnoticeable. Which is not to mourn each and every death from the corona virus, but just to point out that the age at which deaths occur matter.

[Historic NY]

1. Remembering that the massive use of asprin exacerbated the amount of deaths....

soldiers and other were literally drowning in their own fluid. I base this on the dosing period when it was put in use and the administration of higher and higher dosage. First wave killed more because people continued to mingle and go to work or were clustered together in camp, hospitals, etc. I think LE regained as the mobilization of the populations were exposed to the virus which produced antigens in the populations that help ward off future virus worldwide.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Not sure I completely follow you.

Are you saying that aspirin actually made more deaths? Can you give more details?

What I do understand about the Spanish flu was that young people were far more affected than the old or the young, which is completely opposite of what normally happens in a flu epidemic.

My understanding about that, is this: One is that the old people, meaning those over age 50, had been around when a similar type A influenza epidemic had occurred some 50 years earlier, and so were largely immune to this one.

The second is that, unlike what typically happens with influenza, a cytokine storm happened in otherwise young, healthy people, meaning their immune system vastly overreacted to what was going on and completely overwhelmed the body's normal immune system. Resulting in death. This is a genuinely unusual and almost unprecedented occurrence, and was essentially why so many young and otherwise healthy people died. I don't really think this has ever occurred, before or since, and so the 1918 flu epidemic stands as unique in the annals of health history.

I have never seen anything that has implicated aspirin in the deaths in that flu epidemic.

[Chemisse]

3. On edit - Here is an aspirin link.

I have never read anything about aspirin's involvement at all, so was surprised to see this connection.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm

And from a NY Times article: " . . . high doses of aspirin, amounts considered unsafe today, were commonly used to treat the illness, and the symptoms of aspirin overdose may have been difficult to distinguish from those of the flu . . . "