03-21-2020, 11:00 PM
*** 22-Mar-20 World View -- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** The history of the 1918 Spanish flu
****
![[Image: g200321b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g200321b.jpg)
A man wearing a mask uses a pump to spray an unknown 'anti-flu' substance in the United Kingdom, following the Spanish flu pandemi (Getty)
I've now written several articles and almost daily reports, on my web
site and in the Generational Dynamics forum, on the Wuhan Coronavirus
(Covid-19) crisis, and unfortunately the most pessimistic of the
predictions are coming true on a daily basis. In this article, I'm
comparing Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and
showing that there's no material difference between the two pandemics.
Using round numbers, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 infected about
500 million people worldwide, almost one-third of the world's
population. It killed about 2% of the world's population, or 36 million
people.
The Spanish flu (which, incidentally, originated in Kansas, not Spain)
first appeared in March 1918. American troops carried the virus with
them when they went to war in Europe, and it spread quickly to
England, France, Spain and Italy. However, it wasn't much more deadly
than the ordinary seasonal flu at first.
Cases of flu dropped off in the summer of 1918, and it was hoped that
the virus had run its course. However, a second wave of the Spanish
flu began in August, and the second wave was far deadlier than the
first. The deadliest month was October 1918. Tens of millions of
people worldwide were killed during the next few months.
****
**** Saving lives with mitigation strategies
****
The Spanish flu death rate in America was far lower than the death
rate for the world as a whole.
The Spanish flu killed about 2% of the world population, but killed
only 675,000 Americans, or 0.7% of the American population. Why was
the death rate for Americans so much lower?
The reason is that Americans were using the same containment and
mitigation strategies that are being recommended today. People wore
face masks. WW I victory parades and events were canceled. Schools
were closed. Theaters and businesses were closed. There are
anecdotal stories about people who were forcibly locked into their
homes to prevent them from infecting other people. In these stories,
the patient would lower a basket with a rope from a second story
window, and his neighbors would fill it with food.
Containment and mitigation strategies are being used today for the
same reason. The phrase "social distancing" is on everyone's lips.
Tens of millions of Americas are in states that have been "locked
down" in the last few days, meaning that they're told to stay in their
homes. Those people will not be getting infected with Covid-19, nor
will they be infecting other people.
****
**** Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
****
It's always tempting to believe that we're so far advanced and so
sophisticated today, that anything older than yesterday is ancient and
out of date and only of interest to historians and Boomers.
But in fact, it's very hard to see any material difference between the
1918 Spanish Flu and today's Wuhan Coronavirus, except that today we
have some electronic devices like ventilators for treatment.
However, everything else is the same:
in 1918, even the same drug is being used.
So far, today's Covid-19 pandemic appears to be materially the same as
the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The two won't really diverge until a
vaccine becomes available, and that's not expected until late in 2021.
****
**** Alternative strategies: 'Burn Through' and 'Herd Immunity'
****
I described the containment and mediation strategies in earlier
articles, and their purpose in "flattening the curve." ( "17-Mar-20 World View -- Stock market plunges 13% on Monday, as investors begin to accept reality"
)
In the containment strategy, the country tracks and tests people and
uses contact tracing to identify infected people, and isolate them.
When that fails, the mitigation strategy is used, where schools and
stores are closed, and large gatherings are illegal, in order to
reduce the number of infections.
I'm using the phrase "burn through" to describe a strategy where
no mitigation is done, and the infections are allowed to take their
course. A variation of this strategy that I've described in the
past is the "Herd Immunity" strategy, where all the old people and
people with existing health conditions are first locked up for safety,
and then the infection is allowed to spread through the population,
after which the old people can be let out.
There are a number of people on TV and on the internet who say that
the mitigation strategies we're using -- closing all the schools,
businesses and restaurants, for example -- are panic reactions that
are worse than the disease. Many of these people say that they would
like to see the "burn through" strategy used, believing that it would
only kill elderly people who, as one person wrote to me, "they are
going to die anyway."
Some people in the Generational Dynamics forum expressed the
same view. One wrote:
<QUOTE>"I think shutting down the economy to keep drug
addicts and elderly people alive who will all be dead within five
years anyway is stupid. I'm an older person (70) and I am willing
to take my chances if it means my grandchildren won't have to live
in abject poverty for the rest of their lives."<END QUOTE>
Another person agreed:
<QUOTE>"I think that in general terms you are quite right. We
are doing an inordinate amount of damage to our economies in order
to save a very small percentage of the population. ...
We cannot cover the cost of intensive care needed for say 5% of
the population. That would be about 15 million people in the US in
ICU for a couple of weeks.
Panic is causing drastic measures that we just cannot
afford."<END QUOTE>
This is the kind of policy that might be possible today in China or
Russia, but there's no chance that any Western democracy today would
adopt a policy of letting one group of people die, even old people,
any more than it would adopt a policy of allowing all blacks or all
Jews to die.
But it's more than that. The mitigation strategies are not just
trying "to save a very small percentage of the population."
If we look at the Spanish flu figures, we can see the difference.
Most of the world in 1918 used the "burn through" strategy, and
2% of the world population died. But in America, only 0.7% of the
population died, and that can be attributed to the mitigation
strategies.
Using round numbers, 45 million Americans get the seasonal flu
each year. 200,000 are hospitalized, and the number of deaths
is roughly 0.1% x 45 million = 45,000.
If we use the "burn through" strategy with Covid-19, and just
let it spread without taking any remediation steps, then
there will be roughly 200 million infections. The number of
people hospitalized will be roughly 20% x 200 million = 40 million.
The number of deaths will be 2% x 200 million or 4 million.
So just leading Covid-19 spread without mitigation would be a lot
worse than just letting a few old people die. At the very least,
hospitals and funeral homes would be overwhelmed by a factor of
ten, and there would be dead bodies in the streets and in dump sites.
This is the not the direction that America or any Western country
wants to go.
That's not to say that remediation is an easy out. If we assume the
0.7% figure from the Spanish flu, and apply it to the American
population of 300+ million, we still get over two million deaths.
This is a speculative figure, and with curve flattening, the number of
deaths would be spread over a long period of time.
****
**** Why the Covid-19 crisis won't be over by summer
****
A lot of people would like to believe that the Covid-19 crisis will be
over by summer, or even earlier, in April or May. This is a total
fantasy. Let's take a look at some of the reasons why this crisis
will last well into next year.
belief that the virus crisis will end this summer is the most speculative
assumption of all.
****
**** The most dangerous problem: Crowding and poverty
****
There is one more issue, and this perhaps the most dangerous issue
at all.
There are deeply overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, Greece,
Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and other countries. Sooner or later, there
will be a Covid-19 outbreak in each of these camps. People in these
camps are crowded together, living in filth. There's almost no water
at all, and certainly no clean water. If there's a Covid-19 outbreak
in one of these camps, then it will quickly burn through the entire
camp, and fleeing refugees will spread it to other countries.
In fact, any place where crowding and poverty are so great that
containment and mitigation strategies will not work represent a risk
to an entire region. If someone lives in a small home with a large
family, and must go to work every day to feed his family that day or
they'll starve, then "self-isolation" and "self-quarantine" don't even
make sense. He'll go to work anyway, and risk contaminating the
entire neighborhood. This is true in many "supercities," from Mumbai
to Lagos to Mexico City.
In each of these cases, attempts will be made to blockade these
cities and refugee camps, to trap people inside and keep them
from leaving. But this will be unsuccessful, if only because
the virus will create a massive humanitarian disaster, and outside
world will demand some kind of relief.
These situations probably will trigger regional wars, and this may be
the scenario that leads to World War III.
Finally, another major problem area is that many prisons, even in
Western countries, are overcrowded, and the spread of virus could kill
many inmates. As a result, there are calls to release large numbers
of prisoners. This is already a major political issue in many
countries, including the United States.
****
**** The search for a vaccine
****
It seems that hundreds of companies around the world are working to
create a Covid-19 vaccine. There are new developments almost every
day, and a couple of new candidates have already gone into first phase
testing.
But every expert that I've heard says the same thing: these
vaccines will have to go through multiple test phases to make
sure that they're safe and effective. You don't want to be saved
from Covid-19 by a vaccine that kills you anyway. Every expert
I've heard says that it will be well into 2021 before any vaccine
can be widely deployed.
In this article, I've compared the Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918
Spanish flu pandemic, and I've shown that there's really no difference
at all. The remediation techniques are the same, the medicines are
the same, and there's even no vaccine for now. Covid-19 is being
handled in the same low-tech way as the Spanish flu. So those who
want to understand how Covid-19 will affect the world should study the
history of the Spanish flu.
---- Sources:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19, Spanish flu,
Herd Immunity, Flattening the Curve, Burn Through,
malaria, quinine, chloroquine, containment, mitigation,
China, South Korea,
Bangladesh, Greece, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Mumbai, Lagos
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- The history of the 1918 Spanish flu
- Saving lives with mitigation strategies
- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
- Alternative strategies: 'Burn Through' and 'Herd Immunity'
- Why the Covid-19 crisis won't be over by summer
- The most dangerous problem: Crowding and poverty
- The search for a vaccine
**** The history of the 1918 Spanish flu
****
A man wearing a mask uses a pump to spray an unknown 'anti-flu' substance in the United Kingdom, following the Spanish flu pandemi (Getty)
I've now written several articles and almost daily reports, on my web
site and in the Generational Dynamics forum, on the Wuhan Coronavirus
(Covid-19) crisis, and unfortunately the most pessimistic of the
predictions are coming true on a daily basis. In this article, I'm
comparing Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and
showing that there's no material difference between the two pandemics.
Using round numbers, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 infected about
500 million people worldwide, almost one-third of the world's
population. It killed about 2% of the world's population, or 36 million
people.
The Spanish flu (which, incidentally, originated in Kansas, not Spain)
first appeared in March 1918. American troops carried the virus with
them when they went to war in Europe, and it spread quickly to
England, France, Spain and Italy. However, it wasn't much more deadly
than the ordinary seasonal flu at first.
Cases of flu dropped off in the summer of 1918, and it was hoped that
the virus had run its course. However, a second wave of the Spanish
flu began in August, and the second wave was far deadlier than the
first. The deadliest month was October 1918. Tens of millions of
people worldwide were killed during the next few months.
****
**** Saving lives with mitigation strategies
****
The Spanish flu death rate in America was far lower than the death
rate for the world as a whole.
The Spanish flu killed about 2% of the world population, but killed
only 675,000 Americans, or 0.7% of the American population. Why was
the death rate for Americans so much lower?
The reason is that Americans were using the same containment and
mitigation strategies that are being recommended today. People wore
face masks. WW I victory parades and events were canceled. Schools
were closed. Theaters and businesses were closed. There are
anecdotal stories about people who were forcibly locked into their
homes to prevent them from infecting other people. In these stories,
the patient would lower a basket with a rope from a second story
window, and his neighbors would fill it with food.
Containment and mitigation strategies are being used today for the
same reason. The phrase "social distancing" is on everyone's lips.
Tens of millions of Americas are in states that have been "locked
down" in the last few days, meaning that they're told to stay in their
homes. Those people will not be getting infected with Covid-19, nor
will they be infecting other people.
****
**** Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
****
It's always tempting to believe that we're so far advanced and so
sophisticated today, that anything older than yesterday is ancient and
out of date and only of interest to historians and Boomers.
But in fact, it's very hard to see any material difference between the
1918 Spanish Flu and today's Wuhan Coronavirus, except that today we
have some electronic devices like ventilators for treatment.
However, everything else is the same:
- There was no vaccine in 1918, and there's no vaccine
today.
- People were physically locked in their homes in 1918, and people
are required to "self-quarantine" today.
- Exactly the same containment and mitigation strategies that are
being used today were being used in 1918. Schools, events,
restaurants, bars, etc., have been closed.
- There's even another similarity that's really eerie: In the late
1800s, the European "Scramble for Africa" was made possible by the
development of the drug quinine, which could treat malaria. In 1918,
quinine and aspirin were the two treatments available for Spanish flu.
Today, doctors are experimenting with chloroquine, a derivative
related to quinine, to treat Covid-19.
in 1918, even the same drug is being used.
So far, today's Covid-19 pandemic appears to be materially the same as
the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The two won't really diverge until a
vaccine becomes available, and that's not expected until late in 2021.
****
**** Alternative strategies: 'Burn Through' and 'Herd Immunity'
****
I described the containment and mediation strategies in earlier
articles, and their purpose in "flattening the curve." ( "17-Mar-20 World View -- Stock market plunges 13% on Monday, as investors begin to accept reality"
)
In the containment strategy, the country tracks and tests people and
uses contact tracing to identify infected people, and isolate them.
When that fails, the mitigation strategy is used, where schools and
stores are closed, and large gatherings are illegal, in order to
reduce the number of infections.
I'm using the phrase "burn through" to describe a strategy where
no mitigation is done, and the infections are allowed to take their
course. A variation of this strategy that I've described in the
past is the "Herd Immunity" strategy, where all the old people and
people with existing health conditions are first locked up for safety,
and then the infection is allowed to spread through the population,
after which the old people can be let out.
There are a number of people on TV and on the internet who say that
the mitigation strategies we're using -- closing all the schools,
businesses and restaurants, for example -- are panic reactions that
are worse than the disease. Many of these people say that they would
like to see the "burn through" strategy used, believing that it would
only kill elderly people who, as one person wrote to me, "they are
going to die anyway."
Some people in the Generational Dynamics forum expressed the
same view. One wrote:
<QUOTE>"I think shutting down the economy to keep drug
addicts and elderly people alive who will all be dead within five
years anyway is stupid. I'm an older person (70) and I am willing
to take my chances if it means my grandchildren won't have to live
in abject poverty for the rest of their lives."<END QUOTE>
Another person agreed:
<QUOTE>"I think that in general terms you are quite right. We
are doing an inordinate amount of damage to our economies in order
to save a very small percentage of the population. ...
We cannot cover the cost of intensive care needed for say 5% of
the population. That would be about 15 million people in the US in
ICU for a couple of weeks.
Panic is causing drastic measures that we just cannot
afford."<END QUOTE>
This is the kind of policy that might be possible today in China or
Russia, but there's no chance that any Western democracy today would
adopt a policy of letting one group of people die, even old people,
any more than it would adopt a policy of allowing all blacks or all
Jews to die.
But it's more than that. The mitigation strategies are not just
trying "to save a very small percentage of the population."
If we look at the Spanish flu figures, we can see the difference.
Most of the world in 1918 used the "burn through" strategy, and
2% of the world population died. But in America, only 0.7% of the
population died, and that can be attributed to the mitigation
strategies.
Using round numbers, 45 million Americans get the seasonal flu
each year. 200,000 are hospitalized, and the number of deaths
is roughly 0.1% x 45 million = 45,000.
If we use the "burn through" strategy with Covid-19, and just
let it spread without taking any remediation steps, then
there will be roughly 200 million infections. The number of
people hospitalized will be roughly 20% x 200 million = 40 million.
The number of deaths will be 2% x 200 million or 4 million.
So just leading Covid-19 spread without mitigation would be a lot
worse than just letting a few old people die. At the very least,
hospitals and funeral homes would be overwhelmed by a factor of
ten, and there would be dead bodies in the streets and in dump sites.
This is the not the direction that America or any Western country
wants to go.
That's not to say that remediation is an easy out. If we assume the
0.7% figure from the Spanish flu, and apply it to the American
population of 300+ million, we still get over two million deaths.
This is a speculative figure, and with curve flattening, the number of
deaths would be spread over a long period of time.
****
**** Why the Covid-19 crisis won't be over by summer
****
A lot of people would like to believe that the Covid-19 crisis will be
over by summer, or even earlier, in April or May. This is a total
fantasy. Let's take a look at some of the reasons why this crisis
will last well into next year.
- A lot of people are looking to South Korea as an example of
how the outbreak can be contained. The number of cases has been
decreasing day after day, and there were fewer than 100 new infections
for several days in a row. However, on Thursday, there were 152 new
cases, reversing the trend. At least 139 cases were linked to a
Seoul-based call center run by an insurance company, while another 64
cases were traced to a Protestant church in Seongnam, south of Seoul.
The point is that even when the virus appears to be contained, there
can be a rebound at any time because of a new infection. It's
possible, for example, for an asymptomatic person to spread the virus
to a dozen other people. These new outbreaks may be contained through
contact tracing, but they'll keep occurring.
- Some people are looking to China to see how Covid-19 can be
contained. China is claiming no new infections at all for several
days in a row. China's claims are widely disbelieved. That claim may
be true for Hubei province, but there are provinces all across China
where no testing has been done. As I described in my previous
article, reports from Thailand indicate that the Chinese are covering
up Covid-19 cases in Helionjang, Xinjiang, Henan, Shanxi and other
provinces. These covered up cases can explode into new outbreaks at
any time.
- Another issue is that the public will tire of mitigation
restrictions. Right now, almost 100 million Americans in California,
Illinois, New York state, and elsewhere are restricted to their homes,
all in the fantasy hope that they'll be able to return to normal life
by April. How will they react when the learn that April will turn
into May, June and July? As soon as they start violating the
self-quarantine and self-isolation restrictions, the number of cases
can surge again.
- Another issue is a "second wave" in the fall. This is what
happened with the Spanish flu, with most of the deaths occurring in
the second wave. The hope is that the summer weather will reduce the
number of new cases, although this is uncertain. But even if that
happens, the weather will be cold again in the fall, and there will be
a resurgence of cases. And there could be a "third wave"
in the spring of next year.
- Another issue is reinfection. It has not been proven, and is
being debated, that a person who recovers from Covid-19 is immune from
reinfaction. This belief could turn out to be completely wrong. Even
if a person is immune immediately after recovery, the immunity may not
last. And so there may be a new wave of reinfections next
year.
belief that the virus crisis will end this summer is the most speculative
assumption of all.
****
**** The most dangerous problem: Crowding and poverty
****
There is one more issue, and this perhaps the most dangerous issue
at all.
There are deeply overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, Greece,
Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and other countries. Sooner or later, there
will be a Covid-19 outbreak in each of these camps. People in these
camps are crowded together, living in filth. There's almost no water
at all, and certainly no clean water. If there's a Covid-19 outbreak
in one of these camps, then it will quickly burn through the entire
camp, and fleeing refugees will spread it to other countries.
In fact, any place where crowding and poverty are so great that
containment and mitigation strategies will not work represent a risk
to an entire region. If someone lives in a small home with a large
family, and must go to work every day to feed his family that day or
they'll starve, then "self-isolation" and "self-quarantine" don't even
make sense. He'll go to work anyway, and risk contaminating the
entire neighborhood. This is true in many "supercities," from Mumbai
to Lagos to Mexico City.
In each of these cases, attempts will be made to blockade these
cities and refugee camps, to trap people inside and keep them
from leaving. But this will be unsuccessful, if only because
the virus will create a massive humanitarian disaster, and outside
world will demand some kind of relief.
These situations probably will trigger regional wars, and this may be
the scenario that leads to World War III.
Finally, another major problem area is that many prisons, even in
Western countries, are overcrowded, and the spread of virus could kill
many inmates. As a result, there are calls to release large numbers
of prisoners. This is already a major political issue in many
countries, including the United States.
****
**** The search for a vaccine
****
It seems that hundreds of companies around the world are working to
create a Covid-19 vaccine. There are new developments almost every
day, and a couple of new candidates have already gone into first phase
testing.
But every expert that I've heard says the same thing: these
vaccines will have to go through multiple test phases to make
sure that they're safe and effective. You don't want to be saved
from Covid-19 by a vaccine that kills you anyway. Every expert
I've heard says that it will be well into 2021 before any vaccine
can be widely deployed.
In this article, I've compared the Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918
Spanish flu pandemic, and I've shown that there's really no difference
at all. The remediation techniques are the same, the medicines are
the same, and there's even no vaccine for now. Covid-19 is being
handled in the same low-tech way as the Spanish flu. So those who
want to understand how Covid-19 will affect the world should study the
history of the Spanish flu.
---- Sources:
- Why the Second Wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu Was So Deadly (History.com, 17-Mar-2020)
- Tom Frieden / Former CDC director: There's a long war ahead and our Covid-19 response must adapt (CNN, 21-Mar-2020)
- Rebound / South Korea pledges $39 billion emergency funding for small businesses (Reuters, 19-Mar-2020)
- Growing calls to evacuate Greek refugee camps amid virus threat (Al-Jazeera, 21-Mar-2020)
- CDC's nightmare coronavirus scenario projects that up to 1.7 MILLION Americans could die and 214 MILLION could be infected (Daily Mail, London, 14-Mar-2020)
- Stock market plunges 13% on Monday, as investors begin to accept reality (17-Mar-2020)
- Iran's army to monitor entire population for Wuhan Coronavirus (14-Mar-2020)
- Coronavirus updates -- infections spread across the world (02-Mar-2020)
- Planning for Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) (21-Feb-2020)
- Wuhan coronavirus hits China's economy hard, threatens world economy (02-Feb-2020)
- China's coronavirus threatens Xi Jinping's Mandate from Heaven (25-Jan-2020)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19, Spanish flu,
Herd Immunity, Flattening the Curve, Burn Through,
malaria, quinine, chloroquine, containment, mitigation,
China, South Korea,
Bangladesh, Greece, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Mumbai, Lagos
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
