Figure of the day: Coronavirus pandemic 10 times less deadly than Spanish flu

Journalist Pavel Pryanikov again turned to a comparison of two pandemics that have struck humanity over the past 100 years: the so-called "Spanish flu" (198-1920) and the current Covid-19. The graph, which he brought in his channel, shows the mortality rate by week during the "Spanish flu".

At the peak of the second wave in megalopolises, it reached 40-60 people per 1000, or 4-6%. If we subtract the natural mortality rate of 2%, then the mortality rate from "Spanish flu" in one of the waves was 2-4%. To make the scale clear, it's as if 250-500 thousand people died from the virus in one of the waves in Moscow.

In general, in three waves of "Spanish flu" killed 20-25 million - 1.1-1.4% of the total population of the planet at that time, which was 1 billion 850 million. The number of deaths from the "Spanish flu" was higher than the number of deaths at all the fronts of the First World War.

If we impose the mortality rate of the "Spanish flu" on our time, then these 1.1-1.4% of the dead - 90-120 million people. Covid is still about 10 times less deadly than "Spanish flu".

Well, at least something good...