Another Deadly Milestone

This week we hit that mark … Covid-19 is now officially the deadliest outbreak in recent American history, surpassing the US fatalities from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. You know, when we had no vaccines and access to health care was far worse than today.

Now over eighteen months into this thing deaths due to Covid in America alone crossed the 675,000 mark on Monday and are rising at an average of more than 1,900 fatalities each and every day, due to the fast-spreading Delta Variant.

The 1918 flu—which came in three waves, from the spring of 1918, the fall of 1918, and the winter and spring of 1919—killed an estimated 675,000 Americans in total, so now a 100 years later with modern technologies and treatments and new science available, we are still watching Americans die.

But by all means, please tell me masks don’t work and vaccines don’t work, because these new deaths and new cases fall squarely at the feet of those who don’t mask up and didn’t get the prick because … because.

Let’s compare that flu in 1918 and 1919, and COVID in 2020 and 2021:

In 1918 the US population was an estimated 103 million people; in 2020 the population was roughly 330 million. That means the 1918 flu killed about 1 in every 150 Americans, while COVID has taken the lives of 1 in 500.

Sure, there were fewer people in this country in 1918, so the percentages of those who died then are greater than today but think about healthcare and vaccines and treatments that we have today that were mere dreams to medical professionals a century ago. Unlike today, there was no vaccine for the 1918 flu; unlike today there was no CDC or national public health department; there were no antibiotics, intensive care units, ventilators or IV fluids.

And yet now more of us are dying than died then … some 2,000 a day.

The greatest country on Earth with the most stupid people who are more concerned with vacations and bars and football games than they are with helping save their fellow men and women.

And children.

CNBC