Lacadaemon wrote:Muravyets wrote:Actually, according to the doctors on the tv this morning, it pretty much is. The most deadly flu on record was the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, and according to this morning's report, to this day epidemiologists do not understand why that outbreak was so virulent. Spanish flu killed millions in a single year, but leaving out that one, apparently the numbers we see today for flu deaths are comparable to numbers from earlier decades.
I'm just speculating. But it could be because of the miracles of hygiene and nutrition. Also, not having just fought WWI may have helped the old immunity system.
The funny thing is, the 1918 flu pandemic is blank in the UK consciousness.
The war might have made a difference to people's immune systems, as well as nutrition, which has definitely improved. Air pollution, which affects lung health, too. But the weird thing is that I think people seem to lack an awareness of basic hygiene now that they had more in the past.
Of course, flu is a virus and has been hardly affected at all by medical science, but bacterial diseases most certainly have been. Antibiotics truly revolutionized human life, and despite the problems from their over-use, I would never ever want to live in a place or time that did not have them. But in those older days, when any sneeze or minor cut could kill you from infection, I think that people took sickness much more seriously. They quarantined the sick, even if only informally within the house. They rested. They stayed home if they could. They washed their hands like mad. They covered their mouths. Etc. All the things 21st century Americans now have to be taught how to do to protect us from a virus. Maybe we forgot a bit, since we had medicine to protect us from bacteria.
But since flu was a virus then just as it is a virus now, I'm guessing that the infection rates are likely to be pretty constant, regardless of conditions, and that 1918 was an anomaly, which could happen again. So what really protects us from flu, and by extension from another 1918, is prevention -- i.e. strong immune system, good nutrition, wash your hands, cover your mouth, stay home when you're sick to avoid spreading the virus.
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