Spanish Flu Nonsense

 There's a "study" by and "expert" out today that says that the corona virus has mortality as bad as the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918.  That's the big headline being pushed in the media.

Now, here's the reality.  The "expert" took the figures on cases and deaths in New York during the early months of the pandemic and compared them to similar figures compiled on the Spanish flu in 1918.  Because there are better treatment methods today than there were in 1918, however, the "expert" adjusted the results so that he could see how deadly the untreated virus would be.  The adjusted figures for COVID were nearly as bad as the figures for the Spanish flu.

This is total nonsense.

First, in the early days of the COVID pandemic in New York, there was little agreement on the proper method for treating the disease.  There were ventilators put into use (which were not present in 1918), but that's about the main difference.  The "adjustments" by the "expert" were just guesses that he made.

Second, in the early days in New York, the death totals were wildly increased because NY governor Cuomo idiotically ordered nursing homes to admit infected patients to those facilities.  As a result, the virus spread like wildfire and led to over 10,000 deaths of elderly during that time.  Indeed, that's the main reason why it is possible that California has had about 25% more cases than New York but at the same time has had about 70% fewer deaths than New York.  Comparing the Spanish flu to figures for deaths in New York inflated due to incompetent public health moves forced by governo Cuomo, is not a valid methodology.

Third, the Spanish flu infected roughly one person in three on Earth in 1917 through 1919.  That's a total of half a billion cases.  There were nearly 50,000,000 cases in the USA alone.  The numbers of people who have contracted the COVID virus so far worldwide is about 20 million.  That's just one twenty-fifth as many cases.  Deaths from Spanish flu were estimated at 50 million worldwide which is more than twice the current number of COVID cases.  There is no way to base any comparison between the two viruses on adjusted figures for a two month period in one location that only affected a relatively small number of people (especially given Cuomo's orders that led to so many thousands of COVID deaths.)