The death rate in the spanish flu is pretty useless as a comparison. The standard treatment was a minimum of 25 tablets 325mg each of aspirin per day.
The thinking was if you had a fever, they would force feed you aspirin until the fever stopped!
Nobody figured out what that did to clotting and bleeding in your lungs.
Hell, with Nyquil alone the death rate of spanish flu today would be almost nothing. They were -barely- outta the dark ages medically speaking.
My father in law got the Spanish Flu when he was a 19 year old college student in Denmark. Got drunk on a bottle of Aquavit and was well the next day. Lived to 92.