2 ms·
No one is saying loss of life doesn't matter, but if we're wanting to figure out "which disease is deadliest," the result should help you in your answer to the
by hbn 5y ago
No one is saying loss of life doesn't matter, but if we're wanting to figure out "which disease is deadliest," the result should help you in your answer to the question "if you had to get one of these 2 diseases, which would you rather?" Factoring in population and age is absolutely important to knowing how deadly a disease is.
There's other factors too that may bump in favor of the 1918 flu being less deadly, like the improvements with modern medicine. But JUST comparing 2 numbers is not a valuable metric on its own.
- phreeza 5y agoI don't know if "if you had to get one of these 2 diseases, which would you rather?" is really a meaningful question across centuries. The main treatment for Spanish flu was aspirin (!), and many previously very deadly diseases are now trivially treatable with antibiotics. The question I was thinking about is more along the lines of "how terrible an event in world history is this", and I think there it is absolutely fair to look at absolute numbers, and absolutely expected that more terrible events will happen as population increases.