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Death Rates of Past Flu Pandemics
Self | 03-07-2020 | Captain Peter Blood

Posted on 03/07/2020 11:33:25 AM PST by Captain Peter Blood

In doing a cursory look at some recent past Pandemics, Flu related I found the following:

Asian Flu

Another flu pandemic, the "Asian Flu" began in East Asia in 1957, according to the CDC. That specific influenza virus was an H2N2 strain, which was first detected in Singapore in February 1957. From there, the virus made its way to Hong Kong in April 1957, and in coastal cities in the United States in the summer of 1957. An estimated 1.1 million people died of the Asian flu worldwide, with 116,000 of them in the United States.

1968 Flu Pandemic

The flu pandemic of 1968—also called the Hong Kong Flu—originated in China in July 1968, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. Caused by an influenza A virus (H3N2), it was the third pandemic flu outbreak to occur in the 20th century, killing one million people worldwide and about 100,000 people in the US alone.

According to Encyclopaedia Brittanica, it's believed that 1957's Asian Flu pandemic may have given rise to the 1968 pandemic through a process called "antigenic shift," in which there are small changes to the genes of a flu virus which can lead to changes in the surface proteins of a virus—HA (hemagglutinin) and NA (neuraminidase)—which trigger the body's immune response. Ultimately, those antigenic shifts, is why people can get the flu more than once, according to the CDC, and why a yearly flu vaccine is necessary for the best protection against the virus and its ever-changing nature.

2009 Flu Pandemic

The most recent flu pandemic in the US, initially known as "swine flu," occurred in 2009 with a novel influenza virus, H1N1, not previously identified in either animals or humans, per the CDC. The virus was actually first detected in the US, and spread quickly cross the US and the world. According to the CDC, between April 12, 2009 and April 10, 2010, there were 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the US due to the virus. The CDC also estimated that up to 575,400 people died worldwide.

According to the CDC, the 2009 flu pandemic primarily affected children and middle-aged adults (older adults had immunity, likely from a previous exposure to a similar H1N1 virus). And while the pandemic officially ended on August 10, 2010, the (H1N1)pdm09 virus continues to circulate as a seasonal flu virus, causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths worldwide every year.

In each of these recent cases the number of people that died is pretty staggering, yet I don't don't know whether there was a panic like we are seeing with the Coronavirus.

I was a kid during the Hong Kong Flu epidemic, 13, and I can't recall if there was any kind of panic then.

Right now with this Pandemic, we are not seeing the kind of deaths yet that previous ones have had, of course we don't know exactly what the real story in China is.

The question is are we overreacting on this or not enough?

What we know is this virus for most is mild and people recover, some of the death rate clusters are being seen in Nursing Homes, and those have compromised immune systems from various diseases.

I believe one factor causing the panic is the fact this virus can spread easily and even by people who are asymptomatic.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: flu; flumortality; hongkong; mortality; swine
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To: Mount Athos

So why does the WHO (not me) believe the CFR is 3.4% then?


61 posted on 03/07/2020 3:00:51 PM PST by jstolzen
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To: Mount Athos

BTW, we’re apparently going to have to agree to disagree on this. Neither of us are going to change the other’s mind.


62 posted on 03/07/2020 3:01:50 PM PST by jstolzen
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To: SaxxonWoods

This scare epidemic occurred in 1976 with the swine flu scare. By the end of the summer everyone was lined up to get swine flu vaccinations.

It was all a big nothing, blown into a panic by the press and politicians.

There was a big backlash after only 25% of the U.S. public received the vaccine because of a supposed link to Guillain-Barré Syndrome and the fact that the supposed pandemic had gone nowhere.

Caution is fine in anticipating COVID-19 and the seasonal flu in general but insane panic from over-hyped press and political reaction is as absurd as the prepper buildup and hysteria to the Y2K predictions. The public will eventually crawl out of their caves and resume normal breathing.


63 posted on 03/07/2020 3:04:53 PM PST by RJS1950 (The democrats are the "enemies foreign and domestic" cited in the federal oath)
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To: RJS1950
Good post . I agree with everything you say in it.

My fear is that the news media induced hysteria will cause enough people to be quarantined to cause a wrench to be thrown into the gears of the world economy . That is the media's goal to cause an economic depression in an election year to defeat Trump. I hope people come to their senses and see this for what it is

64 posted on 03/07/2020 3:30:56 PM PST by rurgan (Democrats are socialists. Vote for Trump or the US will be Venezuela)
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To: Black Agnes

South Korea has done extensive testing and a few days ago they calculated a death rate of 0.6%


65 posted on 03/07/2020 3:33:04 PM PST by lizma2
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To: jstolzen

“So why does the WHO (not me) believe the CFR is 3.4% then?”

The WHO is correct when they say that 3.4% of confirmed cases have died.

This is a galaxy away from saying that 3.4% of those infected will die.

You pretend they are the same thing, but they aren’t anywhere close to the same thing.

This results in your grossly misunderstanding and misapplying this WHO statistic.

Why? Because there are huge numbers of people who are infected who are not “confirmed cases”.
That means that far less than 3.4% of those who get infected will die.

The South Korean numbers illustrate this, why is their WHO death rate so much lower than the other countries?

You say it has nothing to do with them testing more people.
But it has everything to do with it.

The only way WHO counts someone as a “confirmed case” in their death rate is if they have been tested.

But who gets tested?

Look at the numbers of people who have been tested in all these countries, and you will be totally shocked at how low they are.

Clearly they are mostly testing those with advancing cases, or people who have the most clear reasons for worrying due to travels or companions.

So what does that have to do with south korea?

South Korea has drive through testing, far more people are being tested than elsewhere. The barrier to testing is much lower, it is very convenient quick and free. People with lesser symptoms and less reason to worry are getting tested.

This gives them a much bigger number for “confirmed cases” than it would be if they hadn’t expanded their testing.

Without changing their actual condition, this testing is directly affecting their WHO statistic. Their lower death rate is not a surprise if you understand how the statistic is computed, and why making testing more accessible to people who aren’t so very sick.

Far more people are infected with coronavirus than are indicated by the number of official “confirmed cases”, which means the actual death rate of those who get infected is much lower than people think.


66 posted on 03/07/2020 3:37:44 PM PST by Mount Athos
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To: lizma2

It takes this disease over a month to resolve from infection to death or recovery.

This isn’t a hollywood virus that kills in a matter of 2 or 3 days.

The number of patients that are critical is disturbing.

So let’s give the numbers a month or two and check back then.


67 posted on 03/07/2020 3:44:06 PM PST by Black Agnes
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To: Sarah Barracuda
"And hardly a mention of this in the commie media at the time."

It was definitely in the news, but the media reaction and public reaction were WAY less than what we are seeing now. I don't remember schools closing, events being cancelled, runs on soap and antiseptic, and daily updates on the number of deaths and new cases. I don't remember anything at all about "test kits" and all of the paraphernalia and safeguards that are being promoted now.

And - of course - I don't remember any criticism at all of the Obama Administration's response despite the large number of deaths and the HUGE number of overall cases.
68 posted on 03/07/2020 3:48:38 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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To: Black Agnes
You’ve posted death totals. Not death rates.

Yes, that seems to me to be the flaw in all the talk about this virus. We know how many people have died so far but we really have no idea how many people are infected, so there is really no way to compare it to previous pandemics.

69 posted on 03/07/2020 3:56:12 PM PST by TexasKamaAina
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To: Captain Peter Blood

**I was a kid during the Hong Kong Flu epidemic, 13, and I can’t recall if there was any kind of panic then. ***

Most people then were worried about the Polio epidemic.


70 posted on 03/07/2020 3:59:27 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: SaxxonWoods

Same for a cemetery just outside Farmington NM. I remember seeing the church, and lots of crosses in the grave yard back in 1955. Years later I learned most are from 1918.


71 posted on 03/07/2020 4:01:31 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Steve_Seattle

Because they had to cover for Obamas incompetence, he waited til there were over 1000 dead before he did anything..so the media, being in Obama’s pocket, covered up for him


72 posted on 03/07/2020 4:02:00 PM PST by Sarah Barracuda
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To: jstolzen

The WHO is not an organization I would put much stock in.

https://consumerchoicecenter.org/defund-the-world-health-organization/

https://www.dailysignal.com/2015/08/15/what-world-health-organization-did-wrong-on-ebola-response/

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-who-future/


73 posted on 03/07/2020 4:02:18 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance. Nemo me impune lacessit!)
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To: jstolzen

The truth is that these numbers are all suspect & the WHO has been wildly wrong in the past. This theorizing ahead of data and by making assumption on assumption is what created the global warming monster.

“With 6,767 confirmed cases as of late Friday, South Korea has more coronavirus patients than any country besides China. That high number may in part be a function of the country’s sweeping testing program that involved tens of thousands of people. When balanced against the country’s 44 deaths, the case-fatality ratio is less than 0.7%.”

“That figure may offer a better sense of COVID-19’s true fatality rate, said Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.”

“By testing so many people, they were actually able to find more cases,” Faust said. “It means they noticed the disease was everywhere, and it doesn’t kill that many people.

“The more testing you do, the more accurate your numbers become,” he added.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-07/why-the-coronavirus-fatality-rate-keeps-changing


74 posted on 03/07/2020 4:06:57 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance. Nemo me impune lacessit!)
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To: jstolzen

The sky is falling. You keep acting like a fatality rate has been established. It hasn’t. We have no idea how many people think they have a cold or the flu & stay at home & recover without any intervention. The only place with massive testing SK has a much lower fatality rate because they have tested more people. Stop pretending the experts know the answers. They are winging it.


75 posted on 03/07/2020 4:10:18 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance. Nemo me impune lacessit!)
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To: jstolzen

You are panicked & not thinking clearly. How do we define number infected? They have to be tested to know that they are infected. That is the whole point.
Only the very ill are in the pool unless testing is widespread and the milder cases get added to the pool.


76 posted on 03/07/2020 4:15:01 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance. Nemo me impune lacessit!)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

That was the 50’s. Polio was pretty much under control by 1968.


77 posted on 03/07/2020 4:47:51 PM PST by Captain Peter Blood (https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3804407/posts?q=1&;page=61)
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To: Captain Peter Blood

We were talking about 1957’s Asian Flu pandemic.


78 posted on 03/07/2020 5:25:59 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Black Agnes

The 3 victims in Maryland are recovering in their 2nd weeks.

Most viral infections only last a few days, some a bit longer but if you catch a bacterial infection (mainly pneumonia) because of it, all bets are off.

Some virus came be latent and recur like Herpes, HIV and Hepatitis.

I do agree we have to give it some time to see what is really going on. But I would bet political histrionics is influencing about at least 95% of our current news cycle.


79 posted on 03/07/2020 5:38:02 PM PST by lizma2
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To: lizma2

It takes a week or ten days, possibly 14 days from infection to symptoms.

Another week or two of symptoms.

At that point you either recover or need an ICU bed.

If you need an ICU bed it’s another week or two for mortality to kick in.

There are still a whole bunch of people in SK that are in the ICU and probably won’t make it.

We’ll what final mortality is in a cpl months. Dataset is way too small.

BTW, mortality stays low while your hospitals are able to treat you with ‘best care’. Once your hospitals get overrun it turns into a crap show.

That’s happening in Italy right now. They’re quarantining 1/6 of the country for this.


80 posted on 03/07/2020 5:51:01 PM PST by Black Agnes
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