“Coronavirus vs. swine flu (H1N1) – 2009-2010”
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A lot of people are making the same mistake of claiming the first outbreak of Swine Flu was in 2009. Make me wonder if they actually spent any time at all researching (even a cursory Google search would be helpful) or if they are just copying someone else’s spiel to recycle. I remember it’s first time around in 1976.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtQ-DX7UjXc&feature=youtu.be&t=59
Actually the first swine flu was the 1918 Spanish Flu
There’s long article on the CDC website about the 1918 flu.
“The Deadliest Flu: The Complete Story of the Discovery and Reconstruction of the 1918 Pandemic Virus”
It’s undated but appears to have been written for the 100 year anniversary. Anyway it contains this:
“In 1918, the world population was 1.8 billion people. One hundred years later, the world population has grown to 7.6 billion people in 2018.3 As human populations have risen, so have swine and poultry populations as a means to feed them. This expanded number of hosts provides increased opportunities for novel influenza viruses from birds and pigs to spread, evolve and infect people. Global movement of people and goods also has increased, allowing the latest disease threat to be an international plane flight away. Due to the mobility and expansion of human populations, even once exotic pathogens, like Ebola, which previously affected only people living in remote villages of the African jungle, now have managed to find their way into urban areas, causing large outbreaks.
If a severe pandemic, such as occurred in 1918 happened today, it would still likely overwhelm health care infrastructure, both in the United States and across the world. Hospitals and doctors’ offices would struggle to meet demand from the number of patients requiring care. Such an event would require significant increases in the manufacture, distribution and supply of medications, products and life-saving medical equipment, such as mechanical ventilators. Businesses and schools would struggle to function, and even basic services like trash pickup and waste removal could be impacted.
The best defense against the flu continues to be a flu vaccine, but even today, flu vaccines face a number of challenges. One challenge is that flu vaccines are often moderately effective, even when well matched to circulating viruses. But perhaps the biggest challenge is the time required to manufacture a new vaccine against an emerging pandemic threat. Generally, it has taken about 20 weeks to select and manufacture a new vaccine.”
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html