6 ms·

Covid-19 overtakes 1918 Spanish flu as deadliest disease in American history

25 points by Pyramus 5y ago

BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
Suppose I go to the hospital with a stubbed toe. They test me with PCR and the test detects fragments of dead inactive virus from a month ago when my immune system defeated it. I therefore test "positive" for COVID. They give me the vaccine, which promptly kills me from a combination of stroke, heart attack, and multiple organ failure. This would be recorded as a COVID death, and I would be considered "unvaccinated". Cheating like this is a big part of why the COVID death toll is as high as it is. It's fiction.
- ziml77 5y ago
  That's quite the claim to make. I'd love to see the verified examples you have to back it up as well as statistics on how often that happens so we can adjust the reported values to get the true number of deaths. But I'm not going to hold my breath on you being able to actually support your statement.
  - BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
    > That's quite the claim to make. Is it? What do you imagine would prevent it from happening just like I suggested? Can PCR tell the difference between live virus that's causing illness and dead virus fragments? Do the mRNA vaccines cause spike proteins to protrude out from the normally smooth walls of blood vessels, causing clotting as confirmed by D-dimer tests? Does it take 14 days for a person to be considered vaccinated after getting the jab?
  - vibrato2 5y ago
    What’d he claim that’s wrong? CDC regards as unvaccinated until 2 weeks post treatment. So any acute vaccine reaction is regarded as an unvaccinated hospitalization.
- TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
  Adverse reactions to viral vaccines are coded differently compared to COVID being an underlying cause: https://www.codingclinicadvisor.com/sites/default/files/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20Regarding%20COVID-19_03012021_v15s_%20REVISED%282%29.pdf https://www.codingclinicadvisor.com/sites/default/files/Freq... It's recommended that people wait a few weeks after recovering before getting the COVID vaccine, so they probably wouldn't offer it to you immediately in the hospital if you tested positive: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/media-resources/science-in-5/episode-50---do-i-still-need-the-vaccine-if-i-have-covid-19 https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
peteradio 5y ago
Ok, now do it by age group: "Likewise, the mean age of the people who died in 1918 was 28, whereas with Covid, deaths are occurring mainly in the elderly, said Viboud, who works at the National Institutes of Health’s Fogerty International Center. In terms of cumulative years of life lost, the Spanish flu’s impact thus remains greater."
- bxrxdx 5y ago
  Does it not count when old people die?
  - BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
    Well, we might say it counts less, because fewer years of life are lost. Sorry to say, but we expect people at or beyond life expectancy to die of something.
  - vibrato2 5y ago
    When they’re using a non diagnostic test to categorize them, yes. It doesn’t count.
  - castis 5y ago
    It totally counts, but the goal posts are much easier to move when you organize things in a very specific way.
  - mbg721 5y ago
    It depends what you're measuring. Do people live forever, perfectly healthy by default?
  - refurb 5y ago
    It counts, just not as much. Go look up “quality adjusted life year”.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    Not saying it shouldn't be counted but it may not end up weighing the same in policy decisions. Would you take 1000000 life years from one age group and give it to an older one? Seems wrong doesn't it? Quality of life matters and it should be balanced against the obligations to our elderly not totally subjugated.
m0llusk 5y ago
No mention in the article of comorbidities. This is happening likely in part because we were the fattest and sickest Americans in history even before COVID-19.
- corporateshil1 5y ago
  Brought to you by ForProfit Food Industry and ForProfit Health Industry. Everything is fine, just be sure to invest your money into these people so you don't miss out.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I am surprised you haven't been downvoted. People don't want to hear that they are sick and that they are in part responsible. Really, it's astonishing how sick Americans are on average and how it isn't getting better. Now we are telling people that it is cool to be obese, that medical treatment is preferable over nutrition and life choices, that being around other people is dangerous, that binge watching is preferable to real life, and that it doesn't matter anyway because diabetes will be cured by science "just around the corner TM". But humans can become accustomed to anything. Being overnurished and lacking nutrition is now the norm and people either don't realize it or don't care.
h2odragon 5y ago
> Comparing events that happened more than a century apart has its perils. For instance, the population of the United States in 1918 was a third of what it is now. So as a percentage of the national population, the Spanish flu deaths still has the lead on Covid-19. Everything else is done in "Deaths per 100k" isn't it? AFAIK per that metric COVID still runs behind abortions.
refurb 5y ago
Deadliest if you ignore the fact the US population 3 times bigger. But it made you click! And that’s what’s important at the end of the day.
- vmception 5y ago
  wow, nobody thought of that, you are a genius and a scholar, perceiving so many variables simultaneously! (the article mentions this)
  - refurb 5y ago
    But you clicked! And that’s what’s important.
hbn 5y ago
> The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 pandemic, in waves of illness that stretched out over roughly two years in this country. > According to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker, Covid deaths stand at more than 675,400. Why are we comparing raw numbers? If one disease killed 4 people in a population of 5, and another disease killed 20 people in a population of a billion, I wouldn't say the second disease is "more deadly." Not to mention life expectancy went from under 40 to above 70 in the last century, so we have way more elderly people around.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Why are we comparing raw numbers? For the clicks and eyeballs. Bigger numbers make better headlines. This is journalism 101.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    So much noise, so little signal.
- gruez 5y ago
  yeah this sounds like "top grossing movie" phenomenon. Since the movie market is always growing and there's inflation, a top grossing movie today doesn't necessarily mean it's more successful/popular. eg. if you consider avatar (2009) which grossed $2.8B and titanic (1997) which only grossed $2.2B, titanic is actually the top grossing one once you account for inflation.
- phreeza 5y ago
  Because otherwise a car crash in a small town would be equivalent to a major terror attack in NYC, or Jack the ripper could be considered a minor offender compared to a modern day involuntary manslaughter. There is a time and place for normalized statistics, but for some situations, loss of life is something that matters. Edit: I got the arrow of time mixed up in the jack the ripper example, but you get the idea.
happy_path 5y ago
I'm mildly annoyed by journalists calling "Spanish Flu" where the 1918 Flu Pandemic had no relationship with Spain. The author could have titled the piece as "Covid-19 overtakes 1918 flu pandemic as deadliest disease in American history" and later, inside the article include some kind of note about that in that time, it was called (mistakenly) "Spanish flu". I'm not advocating for "cancel culture" or auto-censorship but it is tiring to have to remind some users that the source of the disease was not Spain.
- jasonlotito 5y ago
  The way we name these things was in fact recently changed for precisely this reason. I forget where I read this, but yes, this is why it’s COVID 19 and not any of the other bad names that people tried to give it. Unfortunately, names for things in the past are harder to change, because people know it as the Spanish Flu, so even if you said the 1918 flu pandemic, you’d still have to clarify which one at this point in time.
  - happy_path 5y ago
    Like the Cleveland Indians (founded in 1894)? If your thesis is true, why are they changing their name?
    - pwinnski 5y ago
      Effective communication is a negotiation between speaker and listener. You are welcome to refer to the 1918 flu epidemic by any name you wish. In doing so, you will be causing confusion in some number of your listeners who do not recognize that name in the way they would the more traditional "Spanish Flu." That might be worth it to you, and over a long enough period of time, perhaps your preferred name will be more widely known, but make no mistake: it's not what most people know today. And to your point, I already can't remember the new name of the Cleveland team. I think it started with a V?
      - happy_path 5y ago
CountDrewku 5y ago
You need per capita not total. The population is much larger today. This is pure clickbait. https://www.aier.org/article/are-covid-fatalities-comparable-with-the-1918-spanish-flu/ https://www.aier.org/article/are-covid-fatalities-comparable...
twofornone 5y ago
>The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 That's great, now do per capita, the population has, what, tripled since then? >U.S. deaths make up roughly 14% of the nearly 4.7 million fatalities that have been reported worldwide in this pandemic to date, even though the country’s population comprises only about 4.2% of the global population. Might this have something to do with testing? And are other countries using irresponsibly high PCR cycle thresholds for detection? While we're on the subject, why has the CDC recommended a lower Ct for vaccinated patients? Doesn't that just guarantee that a vaccinated patient is less likely to test positive, regardless of the efficacy of the vaccine? >The heavy toll the pandemic has taken in the U.S. is due to the country’s inadequate response early on Making sure to blame the previous administration, very nice. Meanwhile our numbers were comparable to many (most?) other first world countries, per capita. And this doesn't say anything about the role of testing and case reporting postmortem. >Comparing events that happened more than a century apart has its perils. For instance, the population of the United States in 1918 was a third of what it is now. Didn't stop you from writing an irresponsibly sensationalized article, did it? >But modern medicine is far more advanced than what was available in 1918. Now people whose lungs are under attack from Covid can be put on ventilators I think its an open secret that the aggressive ventilator use early on in the pandemic killed more people than should have been saved. Im getting really tired journalists opining on the pandemic, totally ignorant of the laundry list of assumptions regarding infectivity, lethality, testing sensitivity/accuracy. Two years in and its still nonstop fear porn. Meanwhile the survival rate is 99.99+, even higher if you're under 50 and not obese. But hey, don't forget to take your third "safe and effective" booster! Even though the CDC just admitted on live television that the so called vaccine does not prevent infection or spread, consistent with multiple preprints which showed similar viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated. But somehow we are still justified in mandates and passports... Nothing about this pandemic makes sense anymore.
- sk2020 5y ago
  You have been downvoted for heresy. You are hereby sentenced to reside in the gray dungeon where you shall share a cell with Copernicus and other perfidious deniers.
mrfinn 5y ago
Well, hard to tell for sure, once it has been announced by the CDC that at the end of this year the PCR tests used are not a valid source anymore for Covid-19 diagnosing [1], because among other problems, those tests are not able to provide a solid identification and differentiation between Covid and other diseases, as the suddenly disappeared flu disease. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert-Changes_CDC_RT-PCR_SARS-CoV-2_Testing_1.html https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert...
- TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/08-02-2021-lab-alert-Clarifications_about_Retirement_CDC_2019_Novel_Coronavirus_1.html https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/08-02-2021-lab-alert... From the link: Is CDC retiring the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel because it has produced inaccurate results? No. There are no performance concerns with this test. The CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel is a highly accurate test. It has been used to successfully detect SARS-CoV-2 since February 2020. . . . Does the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel confuse influenza with SARS-CoV-2? No. The CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel does not confuse influenza with SARS-CoV-2. It is a highly accurate test that detects the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2 viral genetic material within a patient specimen.
  - mrfinn 5y ago
    You see there's a logical contradiction between the two different posts right?
    - TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
      The first post, the lab alert from 7/21/21, withdraws the request for Emergency Use Authorization for the PCR test. The second clarification post explains why, in that the "CDC began distributing the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCOV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel to fill a gap. The wide availability of other SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests means that the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel is no longer filling an unmet need."
IdontRememberIt 5y ago
1) population in USA: 1918 103m vs 2020 331m 2) Spanish flu death distribution by age was totally different (mainly "young" people were dying) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/ So if we considere the "years lost" (life expency minus age of death multiplied by the number of cases), the spanish flue was way more impacting.
sto_hristo 5y ago
It's terrifying to think what Spanish flu would do in today's world. Back then it wrecked the planet in times when almost nobody could joy-travel anywhere they wished on a whim and the world was made up of only 2 billion people. Today, +6 billion people more and anyone can book a 30 Euro flight to snap a selfie in a different country.

25 points by Pyramus 5y ago

Suppose I go to the hospital with a stubbed toe. They test me with PCR and the test detects fragments of dead inactive virus from a month ago when my immune system defeated it. I therefore test "positive" for COVID. They give me the vaccine, which promptly kills me from a combination of stroke, heart attack, and multiple organ failure. This would be recorded as a COVID death, and I would be considered "unvaccinated". Cheating like this is a big part of why the COVID death toll is as high as it is. It's fiction.

ziml77 5y ago
That's quite the claim to make. I'd love to see the verified examples you have to back it up as well as statistics on how often that happens so we can adjust the reported values to get the true number of deaths. But I'm not going to hold my breath on you being able to actually support your statement.
- BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
  > That's quite the claim to make. Is it? What do you imagine would prevent it from happening just like I suggested? Can PCR tell the difference between live virus that's causing illness and dead virus fragments? Do the mRNA vaccines cause spike proteins to protrude out from the normally smooth walls of blood vessels, causing clotting as confirmed by D-dimer tests? Does it take 14 days for a person to be considered vaccinated after getting the jab?
- vibrato2 5y ago
  What’d he claim that’s wrong? CDC regards as unvaccinated until 2 weeks post treatment. So any acute vaccine reaction is regarded as an unvaccinated hospitalization.
TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
Adverse reactions to viral vaccines are coded differently compared to COVID being an underlying cause: https://www.codingclinicadvisor.com/sites/default/files/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20Regarding%20COVID-19_03012021_v15s_%20REVISED%282%29.pdf https://www.codingclinicadvisor.com/sites/default/files/Freq... It's recommended that people wait a few weeks after recovering before getting the COVID vaccine, so they probably wouldn't offer it to you immediately in the hospital if you tested positive: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/media-resources/science-in-5/episode-50---do-i-still-need-the-vaccine-if-i-have-covid-19 https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

peteradio 5y ago

Ok, now do it by age group: "Likewise, the mean age of the people who died in 1918 was 28, whereas with Covid, deaths are occurring mainly in the elderly, said Viboud, who works at the National Institutes of Health’s Fogerty International Center. In terms of cumulative years of life lost, the Spanish flu’s impact thus remains greater."

bxrxdx 5y ago
Does it not count when old people die?
- BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
  Well, we might say it counts less, because fewer years of life are lost. Sorry to say, but we expect people at or beyond life expectancy to die of something.
- vibrato2 5y ago
  When they’re using a non diagnostic test to categorize them, yes. It doesn’t count.
- castis 5y ago
  It totally counts, but the goal posts are much easier to move when you organize things in a very specific way.
- mbg721 5y ago
  It depends what you're measuring. Do people live forever, perfectly healthy by default?
- refurb 5y ago
  It counts, just not as much. Go look up “quality adjusted life year”.
- peteradio 5y ago
  Not saying it shouldn't be counted but it may not end up weighing the same in policy decisions. Would you take 1000000 life years from one age group and give it to an older one? Seems wrong doesn't it? Quality of life matters and it should be balanced against the obligations to our elderly not totally subjugated.

m0llusk 5y ago

No mention in the article of comorbidities. This is happening likely in part because we were the fattest and sickest Americans in history even before COVID-19.

corporateshil1 5y ago
Brought to you by ForProfit Food Industry and ForProfit Health Industry. Everything is fine, just be sure to invest your money into these people so you don't miss out.
ravenstine 5y ago
I am surprised you haven't been downvoted. People don't want to hear that they are sick and that they are in part responsible. Really, it's astonishing how sick Americans are on average and how it isn't getting better. Now we are telling people that it is cool to be obese, that medical treatment is preferable over nutrition and life choices, that being around other people is dangerous, that binge watching is preferable to real life, and that it doesn't matter anyway because diabetes will be cured by science "just around the corner TM". But humans can become accustomed to anything. Being overnurished and lacking nutrition is now the norm and people either don't realize it or don't care.

h2odragon 5y ago

> Comparing events that happened more than a century apart has its perils. For instance, the population of the United States in 1918 was a third of what it is now. So as a percentage of the national population, the Spanish flu deaths still has the lead on Covid-19. Everything else is done in "Deaths per 100k" isn't it? AFAIK per that metric COVID still runs behind abortions.

refurb 5y ago

Deadliest if you ignore the fact the US population 3 times bigger. But it made you click! And that’s what’s important at the end of the day.

vmception 5y ago
wow, nobody thought of that, you are a genius and a scholar, perceiving so many variables simultaneously! (the article mentions this)
- refurb 5y ago
  But you clicked! And that’s what’s important.

hbn 5y ago

> The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 pandemic, in waves of illness that stretched out over roughly two years in this country. > According to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker, Covid deaths stand at more than 675,400. Why are we comparing raw numbers? If one disease killed 4 people in a population of 5, and another disease killed 20 people in a population of a billion, I wouldn't say the second disease is "more deadly." Not to mention life expectancy went from under 40 to above 70 in the last century, so we have way more elderly people around.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Why are we comparing raw numbers? For the clicks and eyeballs. Bigger numbers make better headlines. This is journalism 101.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  So much noise, so little signal.
gruez 5y ago
yeah this sounds like "top grossing movie" phenomenon. Since the movie market is always growing and there's inflation, a top grossing movie today doesn't necessarily mean it's more successful/popular. eg. if you consider avatar (2009) which grossed $2.8B and titanic (1997) which only grossed $2.2B, titanic is actually the top grossing one once you account for inflation.
phreeza 5y ago
Because otherwise a car crash in a small town would be equivalent to a major terror attack in NYC, or Jack the ripper could be considered a minor offender compared to a modern day involuntary manslaughter. There is a time and place for normalized statistics, but for some situations, loss of life is something that matters. Edit: I got the arrow of time mixed up in the jack the ripper example, but you get the idea.

happy_path 5y ago

I'm mildly annoyed by journalists calling "Spanish Flu" where the 1918 Flu Pandemic had no relationship with Spain. The author could have titled the piece as "Covid-19 overtakes 1918 flu pandemic as deadliest disease in American history" and later, inside the article include some kind of note about that in that time, it was called (mistakenly) "Spanish flu". I'm not advocating for "cancel culture" or auto-censorship but it is tiring to have to remind some users that the source of the disease was not Spain.

jasonlotito 5y ago
The way we name these things was in fact recently changed for precisely this reason. I forget where I read this, but yes, this is why it’s COVID 19 and not any of the other bad names that people tried to give it. Unfortunately, names for things in the past are harder to change, because people know it as the Spanish Flu, so even if you said the 1918 flu pandemic, you’d still have to clarify which one at this point in time.
- happy_path 5y ago
  Like the Cleveland Indians (founded in 1894)? If your thesis is true, why are they changing their name?
  - pwinnski 5y ago
    Effective communication is a negotiation between speaker and listener. You are welcome to refer to the 1918 flu epidemic by any name you wish. In doing so, you will be causing confusion in some number of your listeners who do not recognize that name in the way they would the more traditional "Spanish Flu." That might be worth it to you, and over a long enough period of time, perhaps your preferred name will be more widely known, but make no mistake: it's not what most people know today. And to your point, I already can't remember the new name of the Cleveland team. I think it started with a V?
    - happy_path 5y ago

CountDrewku 5y ago

You need per capita not total. The population is much larger today. This is pure clickbait. https://www.aier.org/article/are-covid-fatalities-comparable-with-the-1918-spanish-flu/ https://www.aier.org/article/are-covid-fatalities-comparable...

twofornone 5y ago

>The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 That's great, now do per capita, the population has, what, tripled since then? >U.S. deaths make up roughly 14% of the nearly 4.7 million fatalities that have been reported worldwide in this pandemic to date, even though the country’s population comprises only about 4.2% of the global population. Might this have something to do with testing? And are other countries using irresponsibly high PCR cycle thresholds for detection? While we're on the subject, why has the CDC recommended a lower Ct for vaccinated patients? Doesn't that just guarantee that a vaccinated patient is less likely to test positive, regardless of the efficacy of the vaccine? >The heavy toll the pandemic has taken in the U.S. is due to the country’s inadequate response early on Making sure to blame the previous administration, very nice. Meanwhile our numbers were comparable to many (most?) other first world countries, per capita. And this doesn't say anything about the role of testing and case reporting postmortem. >Comparing events that happened more than a century apart has its perils. For instance, the population of the United States in 1918 was a third of what it is now. Didn't stop you from writing an irresponsibly sensationalized article, did it? >But modern medicine is far more advanced than what was available in 1918. Now people whose lungs are under attack from Covid can be put on ventilators I think its an open secret that the aggressive ventilator use early on in the pandemic killed more people than should have been saved. Im getting really tired journalists opining on the pandemic, totally ignorant of the laundry list of assumptions regarding infectivity, lethality, testing sensitivity/accuracy. Two years in and its still nonstop fear porn. Meanwhile the survival rate is 99.99+, even higher if you're under 50 and not obese. But hey, don't forget to take your third "safe and effective" booster! Even though the CDC just admitted on live television that the so called vaccine does not prevent infection or spread, consistent with multiple preprints which showed similar viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated. But somehow we are still justified in mandates and passports... Nothing about this pandemic makes sense anymore.

sk2020 5y ago
You have been downvoted for heresy. You are hereby sentenced to reside in the gray dungeon where you shall share a cell with Copernicus and other perfidious deniers.

mrfinn 5y ago

Well, hard to tell for sure, once it has been announced by the CDC that at the end of this year the PCR tests used are not a valid source anymore for Covid-19 diagnosing [1], because among other problems, those tests are not able to provide a solid identification and differentiation between Covid and other diseases, as the suddenly disappeared flu disease. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert-Changes_CDC_RT-PCR_SARS-CoV-2_Testing_1.html https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert...

TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/08-02-2021-lab-alert-Clarifications_about_Retirement_CDC_2019_Novel_Coronavirus_1.html https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/08-02-2021-lab-alert... From the link: Is CDC retiring the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel because it has produced inaccurate results? No. There are no performance concerns with this test. The CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel is a highly accurate test. It has been used to successfully detect SARS-CoV-2 since February 2020. . . . Does the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel confuse influenza with SARS-CoV-2? No. The CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel does not confuse influenza with SARS-CoV-2. It is a highly accurate test that detects the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2 viral genetic material within a patient specimen.
- mrfinn 5y ago
  You see there's a logical contradiction between the two different posts right?
  - TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
    The first post, the lab alert from 7/21/21, withdraws the request for Emergency Use Authorization for the PCR test. The second clarification post explains why, in that the "CDC began distributing the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCOV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel to fill a gap. The wide availability of other SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests means that the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel is no longer filling an unmet need."

IdontRememberIt 5y ago

1) population in USA: 1918 103m vs 2020 331m 2) Spanish flu death distribution by age was totally different (mainly "young" people were dying) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/ So if we considere the "years lost" (life expency minus age of death multiplied by the number of cases), the spanish flue was way more impacting.

sto_hristo 5y ago

It's terrifying to think what Spanish flu would do in today's world. Back then it wrecked the planet in times when almost nobody could joy-travel anywhere they wished on a whim and the world was made up of only 2 billion people. Today, +6 billion people more and anyone can book a 30 Euro flight to snap a selfie in a different country.