Covid-19 deaths vs. 1918 pandemic deaths

[Marthe48]

As of today, worldometer lists 520, 852 deaths in the U.S. due to Covid-19 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The 1918 H1N1 epidemic (Spanish influenza) killed about 675,000 Americans before it subsided.

I think Covid-19 will be worse.

Please wear your masks, social distance, wash your hands. Get a vaccination as soon as you can.

[True Dough]

1. Not downplaying Covid

But it's also worth noting that the U.S. population in 1918 was just over 100 million, less than one-third of what it is now.

[Mariana]

2. Imagine what the death toll from Covid-19 would look like

if we only had access to 1918 medical care. Yikes.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. LOL!

I replied the same idea, at the same time, except I took it from now to then, instead of then to now.
If I'd have gotten to the OP 30 seconds later, I probably just would have done a +1 to your reply.

[Tree Lady]

5. I have seen pictures of 1918 patients

A lot of them soldiers in huge buildings stuck together hardly any care given since they lacked our medicine etc.

I wonder if less people would have been killed if not for the war they would have been at home not traveling around spreading virus.

[Mariana]

6. There really wasn't much that could be done for them.

No ventilators. No antivirals. No antibiotics for secondary infections. No steroids. Etc.

[NutmegYankee]

9. Just high doses of aspirin, which may have contributed to some deaths. Nt

[Crunchy Frog]

12. I believe that they may have already had supplementary oxygen,

and possibly convalescent plasma.

[jpak]

7. 2-3 million dead from SARS-CoV-19

If nothing had been done.

This toll will be greater than the "1917 Flu" (as trump called it).

[True Dough]

11. I'm pretty sure

they had access to bleach to inject into their systems back then too!

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Beat Me To It!

But, medical science's life saving capabilities are very far advanced compared to 103 years ago.
So, we might call it worse despite the % of population difference.
If this was the virus in 1918, who knows how many people it would have taken.

[NutmegYankee]

8. As others pointed out, without oxygen and modern medicine...

This completely had the potential to be worse. Only real difference was the 1918 flu picked off the young adults because of cytokine storm.

[Lettuce Be]

10. Needs to be adjusted for population to get a more clear picture

[Marthe48]

14. The death toll numbers caught my eye

And I thought how we've passed WWI, WWII and Korean War and Vietnam totals, and it keeps going.

[Klaralven]

16. The US has not suffered severe losses since the Civil War

US deaths in WW I were only 117,000 while deaths of other combatants totaled about 10,000,000 with France, Germany, and Russia suffering the most combatant deaths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties

World War II casualties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

[Klaralven]

15. US population in 1918 was only about 100 million, less than 1/3 of the current population

675,000 * 328 / 103 = 2,150,000 dead normalized to today's population.

The US death rate was 8.6 / thousand in 2018, so during that year about 8.6 * 328,000 = 2,820,000 Americans died from all causes.

[roamer65]

13. I think the longer term effects from SARS-CoV-2 willl be worse.

We are only beginning to see the long term effects of it.

[Poiuyt]

17. I don't think people in 1918 were as anti-government as they are now

I'm guessing that people back then would have used the protective measures if they had the benefit of Dr Fauci.

[Klaralven]

18. They were probably more anti-government

The Sedition and Espionage Acts Were Designed to Quash Dissent During WWI

When the United States finally decided to enter World War I in 1917, there was opposition at home by those who wanted America to remain neutral in the European conflict and groups who actively opposed the draft, the first of its kind in the country. The most vocal dissent came from pacifists, anarchists and socialists, many of whom were Irish, German and Russian immigrants and whose loyalty to America was openly questioned.

Fearing that anti-war speeches and street pamphlets would undermine the war effort, President Woodrow Wilson and Congress passed two laws, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, that criminalized any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. government or military, or any speech intended to “incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty.” (These were different and separate from the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798 that were mostly repealed or expired by 1802.)

The two broadly worded laws of 1917 and 1918 ultimately came to be viewed as some of the most egregious violations of the Constitution’s free speech protections. They were written in an environment of wartime panic, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of more than 2,000 Americans, some of whom were sentenced to 20 years in prison for sedition.

A handful of those convictions were appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts as constitutional limits on free speech in a time of war. One famous decision penned by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes introduced the “clear and present danger” test, which he compared to shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater.

The Wilson administration knew that many Americans were conflicted about the U.S. entry into World War I, so it launched a sweeping propaganda campaign to instill hatred of both the German enemy abroad and disloyalty at home. Wilson publicly stated that disloyalty to the war effort “must be crushed out” and that disloyal individuals had “sacrificed their right to civil liberties” like free speech and expression.

https://www.history.com/news/sedition-espionage-acts-woodrow-wilson-wwi

The non-Anglo Saxon part of the population largely regarded the US Government as being dominated by those in cahoots with Great Britain. Which was largely true.