CDC: 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) (Spanish flu)
The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about ***675,000 occurring in the United States...
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html
US population 1918: 103 million
therefore, adjuted for population, equivalent US deaths from COVID for USA would be 2,160,000 deaths.
15 Dec: ABC: US COVID-19 deaths top 300,000 just as vaccinations begin
By ADAM GELLER and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press
“The numbers are staggering — the most impactful respiratory pandemic that we have experienced in over 102 years, since the iconic 1918 Spanish flu,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said days before the milestone...
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/us-covid-19-deaths-top-300000-vaccinations-begin-74723337
why don’t certain people lost their jobs?
Wikipedia: Neil Ferguson
Bird flu – 2005
In 2005, Neil Ferguson said that bird flu could kill as many as 200 million people worldwide. He stated that “Around 40 million people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak” and that “There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it [the death toll from bird flu] up to around 200 million people probably.”...
1 Oct 2005: Guardian: Bird flu pandemic ‘could kill 150m’
by James Sturcke
A global influenza pandemic is imminent and will kill up to 150 million people, the UN official in charge of coordinating the worldwide response to an outbreak has warned.
***David Nabarro, one of the most senior public health experts at the World Health Organisation, said outbreaks of bird flu, which have killed at least 65 people in Asia, could mutate into a form transmittable between people.
He told the BBC that the “range of deaths could be anything between five and 150 million”...
Last month ***Neil Ferguson, a professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, told Guardian Unlimited that up to 200 million people could be killed...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke
13 Feb: 2019: Stat News: What happened to bird flu? How a major threat to human health faded from view
The overall human death toll was low — in the hundreds — but scientists and government officials feared that the virus could ignite a human pandemic reminiscent of the catastrophic 1918 Spanish flu. Emergency plans were drafted, experimental H5N1 vaccines were created and tested, antiviral drugs were stockpiled.
And then … nothing happened...
https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/13/bird-flu-mutations-outlook/
Wikipedia: ***David Nabarro is a person who has made his career in the international civil service, working for either the Secretary-General of the United Nations or the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Most recently from February 2020 he has helped the DGWHO deal with the COVID-19 pandemic...
In 2018 he was appointed Professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London and then appointed in 2019 as Co-Director with surgeon Ara Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham...
On 21 February 2020, he was appointed as one of six Special Envoys from the DGWHO, who were tasked to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nabarro
Wikipedia: ***Neil Ferguson (epidemiologist) is the director of the Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA), director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, and head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Vice-Dean for Academic Development in the Faculty of Medicine, all at Imperial College London...
On 5 May 2020, it emerged that Ferguson had resigned from his position as a government advisor on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) committee after admitting to “undermining” the government’s messages on social distancing by meeting up with a woman...However, throughout this time Ferguson has remained on the List of participants of SAGE and related sub-groups, so it is not clear if his resignation was actually accepted...
In recognition of his policy work on non-pharmaceutical intervention measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic, Ferguson received an Emergent Ventures award and associated grant money from the Koch Brothers-funded Mercatus Center...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Ferguson_(epidemiologist)