Tag: Spanish flu pandemic

Ancient Plagues

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ancient-plagues

Excerpt:

But the 1918 Spanish flu has, as far as I know, legitimately died out. Lots of people like saying that in a sense it’s still with us. This NEJM paper (with a celebrity author!) points out that it’s the ancestor of all existing flu strains. But most of these flu strains are less infectious than it was. This didn’t make sense to me the first, second, or third time I asked about it: why would a flu evolve into an inferior flu? Sure, it might evolve into a less deadly flu because it’s perfectly happy being more infectious but less deadly. But I think the Spanish flu was also especially infectious; so why would it evolve away from that?

One possible answer is “because by 1919, everyone had immunity to the 1918 flu, so it evolved away from it – and now nobody has immunity, but it lost the original blueprint.” The 1918 flu was a really optimal point in fluspace, but during all of history up until 1918, the flu’s evolutionary hill-climbing algorithm didn’t manage to find that point, and since flu has no memory it’s not going to be any easier for it to find it the second time, after it evolved away from it. So plausibly, existing flus are strictly worse at their job than Spanish flu was, and digging up an intact copy of the latter would be really bad.

And then there’s smallpox. No mystery why smallpox died out – we killed it. But then we stopped vaccinating people against it, and now if it comes back it would be really bad.

Author(s): Scott Alexander

Publication Date: 14 Dec 2021

Publication Site: Astral Codex Ten

Covid Spurs Biggest Rise in Life-Insurance Payouts in a Century

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-spurs-biggest-rise-in-life-insurance-payouts-in-a-century-11639045802

Excerpt:

The Covid-19 pandemic last year drove the biggest increase in death benefits paid by U.S. life insurers since the 1918 influenza epidemic, an industry trade group said.

Death-benefit payments rose 15.4% in 2020 to $90.43 billion, mostly due to the pandemic, according to the American Council of Life Insurers. In 1918, payments surged 41%.

The hit to the insurance industry was less than expected early in the pandemic because many of the victims were older people who typically have smaller policies. The industry paid out $78.36 billion in 2019, and payouts have typically increased modestly each year.

….

In the 1918 flu pandemic, the number of U.S. deaths reached about 675,000, with mortality high in people younger than 5 years old, 20 to 40 years old, and 65 years and older, according to the CDC’s website.

The ACLI’s data show two other years, both in the 1920s, when year-over-year increases topped 15%, when there also were influenza epidemics, said Andrew Melnyk, the ACLI’s vice president of research and chief economist.

Author(s): Leslie Scism

Publication Date: 9 Dec 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Spanish flu v. COVID-19: Comparing the Numbers and Forgetting the Lessons

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/spanish-flu-v-covid-19-comparing

Graphic:

Excerpt:

So, period life expectancy dropped about 12 – 13% in 1918 in the U.S., mainly due to the Spanish flu, because there was an outsized effect from young adults being the main group killed by the disease (also, period life expectancy was relatively short — under 60 years!). That was a drop of about 7 years.

But life expectancy dropped only about 1 year in 2020 due to COVID impacts, and that was a decrease of less than 3% compared to 2019.

So if you want to compare the effect of the Spanish flu vs. COVID-19 on the U.S. population, all of these rates —- percentage change in period life expectancy, age-adjusted death rates, or even crude death rate — are all more reasonable choices than simply number of people who died.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 22 Sept 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

U.S. Covid-19 Death Toll Surpasses 1918 Flu Fatalities

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-covid-19-death-toll-surpasses-1918-flu-fatalities-11632176583

Excerpt:

The U.S. on Monday crossed the threshold of 675,000 reported Covid-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which tracks data from state health authorities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the influenza pandemic killed about that many people in the U.S. a century ago, in 1918 and 1919. Both figures are likely undercounts, epidemiologists and historians say.

There are several differences between the current pandemic and the one that claimed nearly as many lives more than 100 years ago. The U.S. at that time was roughly one-third its current size, so the flu pandemic took a proportionately bigger toll on the population. That pandemic had a devastating effect on young people, including small children and young-to-middle-aged adults, while Covid-19 has hit older people hardest, according to health officials.

Author(s): Jon Kamp and Jennifer Calfas

Publication Date: 20 Sept 2021

Publication Site: WSJ

Mortality with Meep: U.S. Life Expectancy Fell 2.4% in 2020, and Death Rates Increased 16.1%

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-us-life-expectancy

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The Spanish flu pandemic gives us the demonstration of what happens when there is a short-term large increase in mortality.

Using Social Security records of period life expectancy, there was a huge drop in life expectancy in 1918…. and then a huge increase in 1919. But going from 1917 to 1919 wasn’t really that big of a difference.

The period life expectancy drop was 12% for females, 13% for males in 1918.

Then there was an increase of 15% for females, 20% for males in 1919. The Spanish flu hit the U.S. hard in 1918, and let up in 1919.

If you compare 1919 against 1917, the life expectancy from birth increase was 1% for females, and 4% increase for males — male life expectancy was down in 1917 compared to 1916, probably related to World War I.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 29 June 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979_article

Graphic:

Abstract:

The “Spanish” influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, which caused ≈50 million deaths worldwide, remains an ominous warning to public health. Many questions about its origins, its unusual epidemiologic features, and the basis of its pathogenicity remain unanswered. The public health implications of the pandemic therefore remain in doubt even as we now grapple with the feared emergence of a pandemic caused by H5N1 or other virus. However, new information about the 1918 virus is emerging, for example, sequencing of the entire genome from archival autopsy tissues. But, the viral genome alone is unlikely to provide answers to some critical questions. Understanding the 1918 pandemic and its implications for future pandemics requires careful experimentation and in-depth historical analysis.

Author(s): Jeffery K. Taubenberger, David M. Morens

Publication Date: January 2006

Publication Site: CDC

Salicylates and pandemic influenza mortality, 1918-1919 pharmacology, pathology, and historic evidence

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19788357/

Abstract:

The high case-fatality rate–especially among young adults–during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic is incompletely understood. Although late deaths showed bacterial pneumonia, early deaths exhibited extremely “wet,” sometimes hemorrhagic lungs. The hypothesis presented herein is that aspirin contributed to the incidence and severity of viral pathology, bacterial infection, and death, because physicians of the day were unaware that the regimens (8.0-31.2 g per day) produce levels associated with hyperventilation and pulmonary edema in 33% and 3% of recipients, respectively. Recently, pulmonary edema was found at autopsy in 46% of 26 salicylate-intoxicated adults. Experimentally, salicylates increase lung fluid and protein levels and impair mucociliary clearance. In 1918, the US Surgeon General, the US Navy, and the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended use of aspirin just before the October death spike. If these recommendations were followed, and if pulmonary edema occurred in 3% of persons, a significant proportion of the deaths may be attributable to aspirin.

Author(s): Karen M Starko

Publication Date: 1 November 2009

Publication Site: Clinical Infectious Diseases