Tag: flu

Death Rates Compared

The flu pandemic in 1918/1919 (it came back a second year) infected about 1/3 of the entire world, i.e., it was highly infectious with a huge number of people infected. But it wasn’t a death sentence as the death rate was only 2.5%. Yet millions died because so many were infected. The death rate for the current pandemic is a little over 2%, much greater than the standard flu death rate of just .1%, but, so far, it has infected far fewer people than the 1918/19 pandemic.

A nasty aspect of the Spanish Flu is that it could kill very quickly.  Often those people who were infected died that same day or shortly afterward.  A respiratory killer — you suffocated from lack of oxygen.

Spanish Flu

Flu Vaccinations

Flu vaccination is a curious thing. You willing allow a virus to enter your body, albeit one that is supposedly dead and can’t reproduce, so that it generates antibodies that can fight off a live virus should one come along.  But a few days after the injection, you get a very mild case of the flu.  Sniffles, slight fever.  You accept that — getting sick voluntarily — because theoretically those antibodies are now present and on guard for months, that is, for the upcoming “flu season.”

One wonders if there is any actual evidence that any of this works.  Evidence as in statistical proof involved two large groups — one group vaccinated and the other not — and the numbers on how many in each group get sick.  One would suppose there is such evidence, even to the point of indicating just how effective these vaccinations really are.

See  the link below for this evidence.

Flu Vaccination Effectiveness

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