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But in 1918-1919, a world flu pandemic killed between 20 and 40 million worldwide and nearly 700,000 in the USA. Using these percentages (about 0.6% of Americans died), a similar pandemic would kill about 1.9 million Americans.
This is significant because the number of Americans who die each year is about 2.6 million. Accounting for people who already die from the flu and pneumonia each year (about 57,000), the number of deaths annually would balloon to 4.4 million or 13.75/1000 people which is on par with Chad or Burundi or Nigeria.
The variation of flu is not static each year and can hardly be compared to the measles.
We are fortunate that flu virus tends to move from the southern hemisphere to the northern, so that what's circulating in the southern hemisphere in their winter (June-July-August) is likely to be circulating here in our next winter. Nevertheless, flu viruses have a great ablility to drift and/or mutate. That's what happened with one of the A strains this past winter. However, the vaccine was apparently effective against the other strains in the vaccine.
More children are hospitalized for flu than for other VPDs. Most years, the pediatric flu death cases were not immunized, or not fully immunized.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 04-27-2015 at 05:27 PM..
This was known as "The Great Flu" and a book was written about it with the same title. World War I resulted in an enormous number of people traveling from America to Europe and back. There was a military draft and thousands of young men were sent to training camps often in rather cramped conditions. It was the perfect storm for a flu epidemic and, like you say, its estimated approximately 700,000 Americans died. The flu hit hardest in the cities in the East like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Some things would probably be different today. Some of those who died became ill with a secondary infection of bacterial pneumonia. Today, we could pretty easily treat most of those infections with antibiotics. However, many died simply from the flu virus. There's a myth that the flu always hits the oldest and weakest individuals the hardest. Most of those who died from the Spanish Flu were actually young, healthy men who were in the military. It took years to figure it all out, but what was finally learned was that young people in their late teens and twenties have a powerful immune system. In many cases it was the vigorous response of the immune system that caused the flu to kill so many.
The flu is a disease that is frequently underestimated. I caught it this year because the vaccine that was produced turned out to be a poor match for the most active strains of flu. I coughed up fluid for a week because of that damn disease.
More Americans died from that flu than died in all of World War I! I haven't seen statistics on soldiers, but I bet that deaths from combat were probably about on par for deaths from the flu for soldiers.
The flu is nothing to joke about. All these people who refuse to get immunizations really have little comprehension of what infectious disease can do.
People are a forgetful lot. The major problem with vaccination is that it has done such a good job of preventing disease that now people assume the disease was never a problem. I hope it does not take a major epidemic for us to learn again about the importance of vaccination.
"In the ten months between September 1918 and June 1919, 675,000 Americans died of influenza and pneumonia. When compared to the number of Americans killed in combat in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined- 423,000- it becomes apparent that the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 was far more deadly than the war which it accompanied. (Crosby, 206-207) The United States and the rest of the world had been exposed to such epidemics in the past, but never at such a severe cost in human life."
"September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered hundreds of thousands of military personnel non-effective. During the American Expeditionary Forces' campaign at Meuse-Argonne, the epidemic diverted urgently needed resources from combat support to transporting and caring for the sick and the dead. Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during the war than did enemy weapons."
Two out of three Civil War deaths were from disease rather than combat. I have a distant relative who died from measles during that one.
DH had flu many years ago. He came home, turned the heat up (I knew he was sick when he did that), got in bed, turned the electric blanket all the way up, and announced that even his hair hurt.
People who pass flu off as a minor illness have never had it.
For. Let parents decide to vaccinate or not and make them responsible for the consequences of their actions. If their kids are barred from public school, so be it. Their choices should not endanger other's children.
That's a pretty messed up consequence for a parent not willing to shove a chemical filled needle into the arm of an innocent child.
OK, polio party at my house this weekend! Pot luck style (botulism welcome).
Maybe not polio parties, but they certainly had measles, mumps, and chicken pox parties when I was a kid in the 1950's because they wanted kids to get them as young as possible. I wanted to go to them, but they said I was CHEATING because I had them as an infant. Cannot catch them AGAIN, ya know. Happy Boosters too you.
Edit: Never heard of a party for the PLAGUE either is which is just as deadly as MEASLES, or the even more horrific Chicken Pox.
Associating Measles with Polio gives you no credibility of someone in my age group. BTW, while I was giving that polio vax on a sugar cube, my parents never got it because: #1. Adults don't go to school. #2. Adults back in those days only went to a doctor when they were SICK, unlike today. Don't see a doctor, don't get vaccinations.
First health care workers, then day care workers, and then ALL adults! Hey, maybe sitting in front of your COMPUTER at work YOU can catch deadly viruses! lol
Maybe not polio parties, but they certainly had measles, mumps, and chicken pox parties when I was a kid in the 1950's because they wanted kids to get them as young as possible. I wanted to go to them, but they said I was CHEATING because I had them as an infant. Cannot catch them AGAIN, ya know. Happy Boosters too you.
Parties were not done for measles and mumps because those are so infectious everyone got them anyway. Chickenpox parties, yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jo48
First the children, and now Next?
First health care workers, then day care workers, and then ALL adults! Hey, maybe sitting in front of your COMPUTER at work YOU can catch deadly viruses! lol
Sane parents do not want their kids exposed to a caregiver who can make them seriously ill. It should apply to all teachers. All adults should update their vaccines.
^ parents who refuse vaccinations should have their kids taken away from them
That is extreme.
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