(CMR) The COVID-19 pandemic has now killed more Americans than the 1918 flu pandemic. More than 675,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide, with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.
Despite scientific and medical advances, COVID-19 has now killed more people in the US.
“If you would have talked to me in 2019, I would have said I'd be surprised,” epidemiologist Stephen Kissler of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health told CNN.
“But if you talked to me in probably April or May 2020, I would say I would not be surprised we'd hit this point.”
CNN published a list of lessons learned from the 1918 pandemic that could help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. They included not ditching safety precautions too early, not getting a false sense of security among those young and healthy, and not relying on unproven treatments.
According to CNN reports, Kissler said those lessons were not heeded by many.
“A lot of the mistakes that we definitely fell into in 1918, we hoped we wouldn't fall into in 2020. We did,” Kissler said.
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