3 ms·

Not to contradict you, but had we the Spanish flu today you'd get 300mm dead within a year, and about 2.5 Billion people hospitalized... that would far exceed a

• maxerickson 7y ago
  The public health response was relatively ineffective in 1918 (influenza was not particularly well understood then), a similar virus would very likely not infect the same proportion of people as were infected then. The proportion would probably also be reduced in at least 2 ways. The geographic extent would be smaller, and in areas where there were outbreaks, fewer people would be infected. If there was a good vaccine match for the virus, even more so.
  • abeppu 7y ago
    > The geographic extent would be smaller This is definitely not my area, but as a lay person I've heard that because of the large increase in global travel, a dangerous flu strain could spread basically to basically every continent before we had time to meaningfully respond. Do you have reason to believe that isn't the case?
  • evgen 7y ago
    The 1918 pandemic also arose in a world without air travel. The geographic extent of any similar disease would not be smaller, it would be much larger and spread much quicker.
• petre 7y ago
  The Spanish flu came after the Great War, that's what made it so deadly. That and lack of medication, poor sanitation, hunger etc. which made people even more vulnerable. We have similar pathogens today, some if which mutated from the Spanish flu (Influenza type A). Also, flu is caused by a virus and this research is about antibiotic resistant bacteria.