It's worth noting that the 1918 flu was unique in that it killed many young, healthy people.
Corona virus is more typical in that it's primarily killing the very old or otherwise ill.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...
Corona virus is more typical in that it's primarily killing the very old or otherwise ill.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...
From what I can tell they aren't completely sure what happened here. One theory I read is that WW1 reversed the trend of what happens with flu: if you had mild symptoms, you stayed on the front line. If you had severe ones, you got shipped back home on crowded trains and ships. This is in contrast with regular life - if you get a mild flu you still go out, but with severe flu you tend to stay at home.
I don't think Corona virus will turn out this way. But it also doesn't seem exactly correct to say Corona virus isn't like the Spanish flu. There's lots of possible outcomes as it continues to go global. We just don't know.
> There were two waves to the Spanish Flu. Wave 1 started like the standard flu - it was mild, hitting mostly the old and ill, and not terribly deadly. Wave 2 is when it mutated, spread like wildfire, and killed 2% of the world population.
That's sounds similar to the 1977 swine flu. It mainly infected people in their 20s or younger, because it was likely a lab escape of a then-extinct 1950s flu strain. Older people were unaffected because they had already acquired immunity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H1N1...
Indeed, the problem with the coronavirus is that a better immune system can yield an overly intense immune reaction. If this happens, it yields a blockage of the lung capillaries. Hence, it becomes impossible to breathe. This extreme state lasts for about 2 days. This period might be only survived by utilizing a special type of breathing machine.
This over-reaction of the immune system does, however, happen to a lesser amount if the immune system is in a poor condition.
Hence, the coronavirus might, again, yield a survival of the weakest (like in 1918).
Source: an interview with the German virologist Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander Kekulé, here: https://www.zdf.de/uri/a4719bf9-a2c5-4c66-ad92-105cd8dcfcba (in German)
Another example where we draw inferences on something phenomena, without taking into account the broader context (in this case incidence rate)
It's hard to know whether the elderly and the ill are simply the first wave of casualties or not.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/whistleblower-...
I'd figure they would get exposed more quickly, but the outcome would be, on average, the same as anyone else. Perhaps the stress of working during a health crisis exacerbates the disease, or perhaps they have a more active immune system from constant exposure to new pathogens?
One fascinating thing they mentioned is that a large number of people in China smoke, especially among the elder generation that is experiencing the highest mortality rate. On the podcast, they mentioned that this is essentially a comorbidity, because your lungs are already partially shot by the time you get Covid-19 (and then viral pneumonia).
"Why did so many young adults die? As it happens, young adults have the strongest immune systems, which attacked the virus with every weapon possible—including chemicals called cytokines and other microbe-fighting toxins—and the battlefield was the lung. These “cytokine storms” further damaged the patient’s own tissue."
The more robust immune response was a large cause of the increased mortality.
I think the war definitely helped spread it as living conditions were rough and there was plenty of migration.