(2018) implies that the Spanish flu killed almost 1% (0.95%) of the world population. How do these estimates compare with the size of the world population at the time? How large was the share who died in the pandemic?Įstimates suggest that the world population in 1918 was 1.8 billion.īased on this, the low estimate of 17.4 million deaths by Spreeuwenberg et al. Their own estimate is 17.4 million deaths. (2018) concluded that earlier estimates have been too high. The more recent study by Spreeuwenberg et al. But the authors suggest that this could be an underestimation and that the true death toll was as high as 100 million. The widely cited study by Johnson and Mueller (2002) arrives at a much higher estimate of 50 million global deaths. Patterson and Pyle (1991) estimated that between 24.7 and 39.3 million died from the pandemic. The visualization here shows the available estimates from the different research publication discussed in the following. There is now a lot of variability in these estimates and while the academic discussions continue the range of estimates gives us an understanding of the severity of the event. Several research teams have worked on the difficult problem of reconstructing the global health impact of the pandemic. Further below I will briefly discuss similarities and differences with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2019/20. 5 Even in comparison to the low estimate for the death count of the Spanish flu (17.4 million) this pandemic, more than a century ago, caused a death rate that was 182 -times higher than today’s baseline. This means that in recent years the flu was responsible for the death of 0.0052% of the world population – one person out of 18,750. Paget et al (2019) suggest an average of 389,000 with an uncertainty range 294,000 from 518,000. Current estimates for the annual number of deaths from influenza are around 400,000 deaths per year. To have a context for the severity of influenza pandemics it might be helpful to know the death count of a typical flu season. While peak mortality was reached in 1918 the pandemic did not end until two years later in late 1920.
![pop español 2018 pop español 2018](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3a/18/57/3a18574d30c1320ea5862f681cec78f8.jpg)
2Įven in a much less-connected world the virus eventually reached extremely remote places such as the Alaskan wilderness and Samoa in the middle of the Pacific islands.
![pop español 2018 pop español 2018](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/20/8c/fb208c0ca79734597b0d86bbab2a1e09.jpg)
The virus spread rapidly and eventually reached all parts of the world: the epidemic became a pandemic. The influenza outbreak started in the Northern Hemisphere in the spring of 1918.
POP ESPAÑOL 2018 FREE
1īut it was named as such because Spain was neutral in the First World War (1914-18), which meant it was free to report on the severity of the pandemic, while countries that were fighting tried to suppress reports on how the influenza impacted their population to maintain morale and not appear weakened in the eyes of the enemies.
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(2005) suggests that the epidemic originated in New York due to evidence of a pre-pandemic wave of the virus in that city).
![pop español 2018 pop español 2018](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/29/13/4e/29134ef2cf8b8be2bf8d369b072efe17.jpg)
This influenza outbreak wasn’t restricted to Spain and it didn’t even originate there (recent research by Olson et al. Period life expectancy is a measure of the population’s health in one year. Period life expectancy, which is the precise name for this measure, only looks at the mortality pattern in one particular year and then captures this snapshot of population health as the average age of death of a hypothetical cohort of people for which that year’s mortality pattern would remain constant throughout their entire lifetimes. To make sense of the fact life expectancy declined so abruptly, one has to understand what it measures. Most striking is the large, sudden decline of life expectancy in 1918, caused by an unusually deadly influenza pandemic that became known as the ‘Spanish flu’. What also stands out is how abrupt and damning negative health events can be. This was not just an achievement across these countries life expectancy has doubled in all regions of the world. The visualization shows that in many countries life expectancy, which measures the average age of death, doubled from around 40 years or less to more than 80 years. In the last 150 years the world has seen an unprecedented improvement in health.