I cannot say. I wasn’t alive back then.
But an army base near me had 800 young healthy soldiers die in two months back in 1918, and that is just one place. It wasn’t just old people or people considered to be sick to begin with, it was young healthy people too, and the mortality rate was considered to be around 10%.
I am just using it for comparison purposes, and in my opinion, it is a reasonable comparison.
Yes, the 1918 flu was horrific and particularly hard on young adults.
I’ve never been able to figure out why my family didn’t seem to remember it or take any notice of it. Odd, isn’t it? When I did ask my family about the 1918 flu, they immediately switched to the problem of TB. Apparently, my aunt ( who lived into her 90s) had TB and some more distant relatives died from the disease.