What year was it that the plain old flu killed 130,000 Americans in six months? Surely some

[Atticus]

Last edited Wed Jul 1, 2020, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

of the anti-mask screamers can tell us.

We'll wait--------

[samnsara]

1. ...and killed that many is less than 6 months!

[Atticus]

14. Excellent point. See my edit. Thanks. nt

[flyingfysh]

2. even "plain old flu" can be deadly

In the 1918 outbreak, it killed about 675,000 Americans, at a time when the US population was much smaller than it is today. One of the measures found to be effective then was: masks!

Maybe Republicans don't bother to read history?

[Atticus]

12. I actually thought of starting my post with "in the past 100 years", but deemed it

unnecessary.

[TheFarseer]

3. I read up on this

The worst flu season since 1918 was 67-68 and that year the flu killed 100,000 - although some sources said 113,000. Either way, Covid is worse and the death toll is rising.

On edit - Whoops! Should have read farther. 57-58 killed 116,000 in the US.

[blitzen]

6. Also, the official flu numbers are always adjusted for estimated uncounted deaths...

which is usually a very large portion of the total. That hasn't been done yet for the COVID-19 numbers. Florida, for instance, has had around 5000 more flu deaths over the past few months than would be expected. (In Florida's case, it's a pretty safe bet that they are following the Russian plan--counting COVID-19 deaths as "pneumonia".)

[HockeyMom]

7. Actually I think you were right with '68/69

That was the year of Woodstock, communes, make love not war, etc.

I had the '57 one as a kid and the other as a young working adult. A lot of my co-workers (not just hippies) went to Woodstock. I remember a lot of people being home sick from work that year.

Yes, I hear that flu shots were around then, but not many people got them back then.

[TheFarseer]

10. Wish I could find a table that listed deaths per year

Then I could do a real comparison. Anyway, those years were similar in how bad they were but neither was nearly as bad as Covid. Hopefully it will not top 1918 or we’ve got real problems.

[HockeyMom]

15. Quick search

https://weather.com/health/cold-flu/news/2020-01-31-5-worst-flu-outbreaks-in-recent-history

What the article states about 2009 Pandemic is very true. Worked in an elementary school then. All the kids and young staffers were out sick. We older staff started calling the school Seagate Senior Center!

Classroom 30 something Teacher I worked with had her flu shot, even wore a MASK into class, and was disinfecting everything in the room. She still caught the flu. I was a 60 year old Para with a degree and was told to teach her class. Think they paid me a Teacher's wages doing this???? That is subject for a different thread.

Edit: This was in a wealthy area Florida Public School. They did not shut down the school, or any others, with all that flu. I think Charlie Crist (D) was Governor then. Maybe it's not who the Governor is, but what the mindset of the people is.

[GulfCoast66]

17. And that was with way more primitive treatments

We had no antivirals. Don’t know if we had ventilators and common vaccines.

[marie999]

4. One problem is that flu has a season.

This pandemic does not.

[malaise]

5. Don't hold your breath

Please also ask them if the said flu made grandma, grandpa, mom or dad die in a room on their own with no visitors allowed.

[HockeyMom]

8. My Mom never caught that flu from me

She came to stay and take care of me in my one room apartment. I suppose unlike this never before seen coronavirus, people of the older generations had probably developed at least some immunity from previous flu epidemics/pandemics.

Same happened with the 2009 Flu Pandemic. It was young people getting it, not the older generations. You can Google search that.

[malaise]

9. We need to hammer that home

over and over

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. we're only halfway through the year, I expect it may be 200-250K+ by November (n/t)

[Initech]

13. 1918 flu killed 650K by the time it was all over.

I bet this thing will get at least a third of those numbers by the time we're done.

[ProfessorGAC]

16. In An Era Where We Can ID The Virus!

In 1918, the ability to isolate and identify a virus was stone aged.
And, yet this thing may take down a quarter million.
Absent modern med tech, this one might be worse.
At least a hundred plus years of knowledge gave us some advantage.

[madinmaryland]

18. Of course a 100 years of republican stupidity has not helped or the incompetence of POTUS.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Fair! (nt)

[Amishman]

21. Covid-19 will top 500k in the US IMO

It might take two years to get there, but it will happen.

This isn't going away.

[BGBD]

19. 1918....57......68......

none of those were "regular old flu" either. Thoese were all novel strains that caused pandemic flus.

a regular flu season with a common strain of H1 or H3 might kill 50k people with somewhere on the order of 50-100 million infections.

That's with 0 effort to mitigate expect for a mildly effective flu shot. No social distancing, masks, attention to hand hygiene, ect.

[Quiet_Dem_Mom]

22. What percentage of COVID survivors are going to have life-long health issues?

That doesn't seem to be a factor when talking about face coverings or reporting the number of people who have "recovered" from COVID.

Is the flu comparable with COVID in that regard?