Last week, the United States reached a grim milestone in its fight to contain the coronavirus.
News broke that more people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. than are estimated to have died of influenza during the 1918 pandemic.
Since Feb. 29, 2020, the United States has reported more than 675,000 coronavirus-related deaths. That is roughly how many died of influenza in the United States from 1918 to 1919 – a pandemic known as “deadliest of the 20th century.”
But context here is important.
The U.S. population is more than three times as large as it was a century ago.
And the coronavirus has also killed fewer of the people it infected than the 1918 H1N1 flu virus. While in 1918, the estimated 675,000 deaths represented about 1 in 150 Americans; the coronavirus numbers represent 1 in 500.
But the parallel still should be concerning.
With overwhelmed hospitals, wide disagreement over vaccine mandates and another winter approaching, the coronavirus doesn’t seem to be burning itself out like the flu virus did a century ago.
Instead, it’s adapting, with new, more contagious variants.
Annabelle Timsit writes for The Washington Post.
