Covid-19 Toll in U.S. Is About to Surpass 1918 Pandemic Deaths

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: Bloomberg

The U.S.’s Covid-19 pandemic could surpass the number of dead in the 1918 influenza pandemic as soon as Monday, a milestone many experts say was avoidable after the arrival of vaccines.

The U.S. has reported 673,768 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data -- just shy of the 675,000 that are estimated to have died a century earlier. The toll has increased by an average of 1,970 a day over the past week.

The deadly mark approaches despite the widespread availability of Covid-19 vaccines, which were developed in record time in a display of the extraordinary advances in medical science in the past century. The inoculations have been passed up by some 70 million eligible Americans, many of them encouraged by Republican politicians and conservative media.

“To have so many people who have died with modern medicine is distressing,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Research Institute, who noted there were no ventilators or vaccines in 1918. “The number we are at represents a number that is far worse than it should be in the U.S.”

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-20/covid-19-toll-in-u-s-is-about-to-surpass-1918-pandemic-deaths

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All the red states are doing their part.

[BlueWavePsych]

1. 50,000+ from Florida alone

[IronLionZion]

2. Making America Great Again

I like the answers MAGAts give when asked when America was great.

[central scrutinizer]

3. Percentages are more relevant

Not to minimize the tragedy, but counts are misleading. US population in 1920 census was 106.5 million. Today it’s about 330 million, just over three times as great. Today about 1 in 500 Americans has died. About 1 in 170 in 1918.

[NullTuples]

6. Vaccines, medical & social knowledge should have been able to compensate, and more.

The virus genome was published within days of the virus being identified.

The first test was published for the entire world to use within a week or two.

The first vaccine was submitted to the FDA by May.

We had massive amounts of knowledge, supplies & systems ready to use as of January 2017.

We had federal representatives working by agreement in China's CDC.

And the baseline virus when it first started spreading was only symptomatic in less than half the population.

We should have been able to beat this easily, here and overseas. We had everything we needed, except one of our two political parties is anti-science, anti-consent, extremist religious and decided to force a narcissist on us.

[central scrutinizer]

9. I agree completely

So many differences between now and then. In 1918, there would have been a lot of family lore about the ravages of childhood diseases. I went to a family reunion in 2007 and looked at various branches of the family tree. Pretty much every branch lost kids. One branch had nine kids, only two made it past puberty. But all those losses were enough generations in the past to be forgotten.

[NullTuples]

10. The tragedy is that many GOP politicians remember polio & smallpox

[marie999]

12. The counts are usually misleading.

Take the 5 top-grossing movies. Of the 5 top grossing movies the only one that is also in the top 5 grossing movies taking into account inflation is Titanic (1997). The worse murderer of all time by percentage of population only killed one person, his brother.

[jsabrown]

4. Do the math....

Upwards of 700K deaths IS awful, and this is not to minimize that, but do remember the US population is more than 3x what it was in 1918.

[NullTuples]

7. 700k is likely not an accurate count for COVID

For a year and a half, red states have been undercounting or like Texas & Florida intentionally not publishing numbers or manipulating them to intentionally undercount COVID deaths.

[rickyhall]

5. Since repugs hate democracy it's no surprise they always ignore the majority.

Or they just claim the majority when they NEVER have one.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. For this thread

Link to tweet

[moriah]

11. While others are comparing the US population 100 years ago....

.... I'd like to compare the availability of antibiotics, if nothing else.

Yes, many of the 1918 deaths seemed to be abrupt, from cytokine storms, etc.

But most of the deaths were not abrupt -- and instead took the course of the flu weakening their lungs, making them susceptible to secondary bacterial pneumonia. Even without a vaccine, if antibiotics had been available in 1918 it is highly likely our death toll would have been markedly less.

Part of the reason researchers even got sidetracked into thinking the 1918 "grippe" was bacterial instead of viral was that they WERE identifying bacteria from sputum cultures of those who lingered then died. Since they were identifying so many different bacteria and not all of those who died from the disease (especially those who died fast) they thought they just hadn't found the right one, not that it was a virus making the patients more susceptible to bacterial pneumonias of many types.

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100 years later we may have 3x the population, but we also have antibiotics to prevent secondary infection. We have monoclonal antibodies to give if the patient learns they have it early on -- which is one way the OSHA "vax or test" will help those who refuse to vax, as they will be more likely to learn in time they have it and get those antibodies infused. We have many other supportive therapies. AND we have a vaccine which reduces severity, even if it isn't 100%.

The fact that this many people have died directly from COVID-19, when we DO have so many more resources than we did then, is a tragedy -- and even more have died because of health care resources being too overwhelmed to properly treat all patients.

[olddad65]

13. What was the US population in 1918?

[Steelrolled]

14. Per-capita figures require long division.

Since the start of the pandemic I have come to the conclusion that long division is a rare skill.

[Ollie Garkie]

15. according to world meter

692k , surpassing the Spanish flu a couple weeks ago.