Pandemic: It’s a scary word.
But the world has seen pandemics before, and worse ones, too. Consider the influenza pandemic of 1918, often referred to erroneously as the “Spanish flu.” Misconceptions about it may be fueling unfounded fears about COVID-19, and now is an especially good time to correct them.
In the pandemic of 1918, between 50 and 100 million people are thought to have died, representing as much as 5% of the world’s population. Half a billion people were infected.
The 1918 flu is the bench mark in pandemics. The exact number who died will never be known. There as always been a lot of speculation what would happen if a similar flu infected the planet today. With our global transport system there would be nothing to slow the spread. Personally I think it would be a desperate race to develop a vaccine against a nasty strain like this.
My father was 8 years old during the 1918 pandemic. He lived on a ranch in remote, eastern Oregon. They sheltered in placed, closed the school and stores. The town felt the worst had past, so reopened the movie theater. Mistake! The teacher, who unknowingly had the flu, attended the movie and gave many of the towns people the flu, including my father and his sister.
I see this as our problem. When will we know that we can safely come out of our shelter?
Me personally, I will leave it for at least another 4 weeks beyond any official all clear to see if it flares back up again. If I have isolated for all that time another 4 weeks should be easy, having developed a strategy to cope by then.
Interesting article.
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