Then and now, and what about later?

The 35-month Spanish flu infected 500 million people and killed somewhere between 17 million and 50 million. The world population in 1918 was less than 2 billion. Many more people lived outside cities then. And, the world had been at war since August 1914. Crowded military camps, crowded battle lines and crowded cities contributed to the spread of what was called “the Spanish flu.” Governments locked down information and made inaccurate, propagandist statements about the flu, when any mention was made at all.

Now, there are many more of us, 7.8 billion by most estimates. The majority of people live in cities, many crowded beyond our imaginations. We think we know what a crowded city looks like, but search for satellite pictures of the world’s largest cities, and you will find your imagination limited in its belief about crowded.

In no way is this round of sickness as deadly as the World War I variety. More might be infected, but there are around 6 billion more people that in 1918. Determining an infected-to-killed percentage is not possible, given the range of estimated dead from the 1918 flu.

Upon first reading, several years ago, that scientists had dug up bodies of Spanish flu victims from permafrost areas, I was of the “Wait a minute, you don’t know what’s going to happen” thought. Researchers assured us that their methods of research guaranteed none of the virus would be released.

Just like operators of the Chinese labs?

Stuff sticks around.

“Well, somewhere out in the wild there is a pocket of smallpox or something similar, just waiting to be picked up by some explorer and brought back to a population that has never been exposed to it or vaccinated for it, ever. The CDC, in answer to an e-mail I sent them about it several years ago (because I had the vaxx twice, once in infancy and once again in boot camp, and they both took), responded with ‘both of them fade after XX years’. In plain English, nothing lasts forever, including immunity. I didn’t ask CDC about the polio vaxx, but we got that at school as soon as the Salk vaccine was available, once as an injection and again (twice) with the sugar cube version.

“Nothing lasts forever.” -- valorguardians