Reply #7: Ever:y time I hear the scare talk [View All]

[SheilaT]

about how another flu pandemic could be as bad, or maybe worse, than the 1918 one, I try to get people to understand that there are enormous differences between today and then.

One hugely important difference (and I have no idea if this is any kind of a factor in Mexico City) is that back then few homes had running water, and routine hand-washing -- possibly the single biggest public-health improvement ever -- didn't exist then. That one factor alone would tend to hold down the spread of flu.

And of course there's diet and nutrition and other aspects of life that have changed dramatically over time. European peasants tended to live with their farm animals, making it very easy for pathogens to pass back and forth. It's probably why the Black Plague was so terrible: people lived in the same rooms with the animals that hosted the fleas that carried the plague.