The Germaphobe » History Lessons http://www.thegermaphobe.net Maintaining a clean existence in an unsanitary world Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:20:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 In History: 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic http://www.thegermaphobe.net/2009/06/08/in-history-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic/ http://www.thegermaphobe.net/2009/06/08/in-history-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:00:11 +0000 Ryan http://www.thegermaphobe.net/?p=234 Nurses in Washington D.C.

Everyone knows about the current H1N1 Swine Flu scare, but this is nothing compared to the darkest pandemic in germaphobe history – The Spanish Flu of 1918.

Let’s put it this way: Four years of history’s then deadliest conflict, The Great War, killed about 15 million people. This involved millions fighting each other with efficient weapons such as machine guns and chemical weapons. One year of the Spanish Flu from 1918-1919 killed an estimated 20-40 million people. My gosh, a dirty war and this flu. This would not be the time to be alive!

Over a quarter of Americans got infected, and there was a much higher mortality rate (2.5% vs 0.1% on average) compared to regular pandemics. As this was the worst pandemic in recorded history, it’s the only incident I have categorized as Code White.

To read more, visit these sites:

Stanford: 1918 Influenza Pandemic
Center for Disease Control 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Or if books are your thing:

]]> http://www.thegermaphobe.net/2009/06/08/in-history-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic/feed/ 0