Tag: Spanish flu

According to history, it is the pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide where about one-third of the planet’s population and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. It originally came from Europe and spread to the United States and parts of Asia before making it at almost any point in the world. Like any other flu, it attacks the respiratory system, highly contagious and is easily spread through coughing, sneezing, getting droplets from an infected person and sometimes, it can travel a good amount of distance when it is suspended in the air. How it was treated back then is the very exact method we are doing right now, the non-pharmaceutical methods such as social distancing (traditional way), closure of non-essential places and ban on public gatherings. In 2008, researchers announced they’d discovered what made the 1918 flu so deadly: A group of three genes enabled the virus to weaken a victim’s bronchial tubes and lungs and clear the way for bacterial pneumonia. Currently, COVID-19 poses a good enough threat to mankind like the Spanish flu did back then. However, with better communications, experiences and more advanced knowledge/technology/experts we have, there is no doubt that humanity can survive this one.