![]() In 1918, the explanation for these inequities was different. Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here. To illustrate that, an estimated 18 million Indians died during the 1918 flu – the highest death toll of any country, in absolute numbers, and the equivalent of the worldwide death toll of the First World War. Today as in 1918, these disadvantages often coincide, meaning that the poor, the working classes and those living in less developed countries tend to suffer worst in an epidemic. If, on top of everything else, they don’t have access to good-quality healthcare, they become even more susceptible. Malnutrition, overwork and underlying conditions can compromise a person’s immune deficiencies. ![]() ![]() Though everyone is susceptible, more or less, those who live in crowded and sub-standard accommodation are more susceptible than most. This is one reason historians agree that the 1918 pandemic hastened the end of the First World War, since both sides lost so many troops to the disease in the final months of the conflict – a silver lining, of sorts.Ĭrowd diseases exacerbate human inequities. Both are what are known as “crowd diseases”, spreading most easily when people are packed together at high densities – in favelas, for example, or trenches. COVID-19 kills a considerably higher proportion of those it infects, than seasonal flu, but it’s not yet clear how it measures up, in terms of lethality, to pandemic flu – the kind that caused the 1918 disaster. Both are caused by viruses, and both are highly contagious. They are both respiratory diseases, spread on the breath and hands as well as, to some extent, via surfaces. It was a veritable tidal wave of death – the worst since the Black Death of the 14th-century – and possibly in all of human history.įlu and COVID-19 are different diseases, but they have certain things in common. The vast majority of the deaths occurred in the 13 weeks between mid-September and mid-December 1918. That receded towards the end of the year, only to be reprised in the early months of 1919 by a third and final wave that was intermediate in severity between the other two. A relatively mild wave in the early months of 1918 was followed by a far more lethal second wave that erupted in late August. The 1918 flu pandemic claimed at least 50 million lives, or 2.5 per cent of the global population, according to current estimates.
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