The 1918 Flu Pandemic or
Spanish Flu infected 500 million people and killed an estimated 50 million. The World's population was 1.5 billion.
Comparable rates for today's population of 7.8 billion would be 2.6 billion infected and 260 million killed.
Current figures for Covid-19 are 15.3 million infected and 624 thousand killed.
Possible reasons for the huge differences include:
1) Covid-19 still has a long time to run;
2) Spanish Flu was a lot more virulent;
3) We have managed to contain Covid-19 a lot better;
4) A combination of all of these, plus other factors.
Since we really don't want 259 million more deaths, please continue to be diligent about mask-wearing, hand-washing and social distancing.
Thank you
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