
Patriarch of Pandemics - qqqqquinnnnn
https://demystifyingscience.com/blog/2020/3/4/patriarch-of-pandemics
======
ekianjo
> The Great War destroyed the stability of a generation, and took 20 million
> lives

That's an understatement. Rather two or three generations, since the Second
World War is pretty much a direct consequence of how the First one ended.

~~~
empath75
The middle east is _still_ a clusterfuck because of WWI.

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mikorym
> The 1918 pandemic, deadly as it was, is still around today in the form of a
> mutated seasonal flu. Following global exposure and culling of the most
> vulnerable populations - middle aged adults that were most affected by the
> negative effects of the war - the lethality of the virus is significantly
> less.

OK, but was there some kind of seasonal flu before that? That is the real
question to me.

~~~
huffmsa
Yes, but this just became the big dog.

Like how there were other hominids before us, but now it's just us.

~~~
mikorym
Can we infer from this that flu prior to 1918 was less severe on average? Or
is the result not that strong?

~~~
huffmsa
They likely followed the same pattern.

Severe initial outbreak when a new super strain appeared, then a gradual
decline in severity as immunity developed and the strain continued to evolve.

Rinse and repeat.

1918 was the first time that a flu benefited from modern transportation speed
and the massive movement of humanity to and from Europe because of the war.

So in the past an equally deadly flu would inadvertently be contained simply
because infected carriers couldn't move to new, uninfected areas before they
were dead or and beaten the virus.

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lawrenceyan
Do babies inherit the developed immune systems of their parents? If not, how
do the gained resistances from survivors pass on to the next generation?

~~~
joshmarlow
I believe there is some heritability. What's more, long term human couples
tend to have dissimilar immune systems [0], allowing their offspring to have a
more diverse spread of immunities.

The fact that humans are somehow able to _detect_ properties of a potential
partner's immune system is _super_ interesting to think about.

[0] - [https://www.amazon.com/Social-Animal-Sources-Character-
Achie...](https://www.amazon.com/Social-Animal-Sources-Character-
Achievement/dp/0812979370)

~~~
wahern
Wikipedia links for disassortative immunological mating:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_compl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex_and_sexual_selection#In_humans)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_matchmaking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_matchmaking)

~~~
joshmarlow
I did not know the name for this - thanks for sharing!

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projektfu
If so, then over the next 100 years it has killed many more than 40M.

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abiogenesis
The World Health Organization estimates that worldwide, annual influenza
epidemics result in about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.

~~~
pibefision
Yes, but it is not contagious as covid19 is.

~~~
easytiger
That's not true. The problem is that a subset of persons require ventilation
to survive more so than flu

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Why Covid-19 is worse than the flu, in one chart [https://www.vox.com/science-
and-health/2020/3/18/21184992/co...](https://www.vox.com/science-and-
health/2020/3/18/21184992/coronavirus-covid-19-flu-comparison-chart)

on edit: furthermore
[https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm)
says the range of people catching the flu per season is 3% and 11% whereas the
estimates for catching Covid-19 are generally around 40-70%

~~~
empath75
the second number will decline after everyone catches it, obviously.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
what is the second number you refer to?

~~~
abiogenesis
I believe they meant the "40-70%" figure.

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dmos62
It's fantastic to me that pandemics were possible many centuries ago, though
maybe the definition applied is different than to a current outbreak.

> The outbreak of influenza reported in 1173 is not considered to be a
> pandemic, and other reports to 1500 generally lack reliability. The outbreak
> of 1510 is probably a pandemic reported with spreading from Africa to engulf
> Europe. The outbreak of 1557 is possibly a pandemic. The first influenza
> pandemic agreed by all authors occurs in 1580.

~~~
leetcrew
people have been trading for a long time. the modern point-to-point
connections didn't exist, obviously, but east asia and western europe have
been indirectly connected through trade routes since ancient times [0]. as
long as the disease wasn't virulent enough to kill most hosts in a single leg
of transit, it could be spread across all of asia and europe. the world-wide
spread would be slower, but intra-community spread would probably be even
faster due to the lower standards of sanitation and medical understanding.

a truly global pandemic probably wouldn't have been possible with the lack of
connectivity between eurasia and the americas.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road)

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rntksi
Following links gets you to this article which tries to explain that the
Neolithic decline happened also because of a plague.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_decline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_decline)

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devmunchies
Very interesting how in a matter of days, the Spanish flu has been renamed to
the 1918 flu. Cancel culture writ large. It’s actually impressive.

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i_haz_rabies
The "Spanish" part has always been a misnomer, since it likely began in the
United States.

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devmunchies
Yeah I don’t care why. Theres a lot of things that are misnamed. I was just
commenting on the power of the internet and outrage culture. I don’t use
social media outside HN so I don’t feel the same sense of injustice.

~~~
Frondo
It's never a bad thing to use more accurate terminology, or to update language
as society and culture develop.

If my grandmother can learn a better word for "brazil nuts," you can learn a
better name for the 1918 flu that started in Kansas.

~~~
devmunchies
This has nothing to do with accurate terminology. It’s 100% political.

~~~
qqqqquinnnnn
what's political, not calling an epidemic that was carried by migrant workers
and Frontline soldiers into Fort Funston Kansas thé "Spanish Flu?"

~~~
devmunchies
in the 90s i would imagine seeing a "Fun Fact" on the back of a cereal box
saying "Did you know the Spanish flu actually started in Kansas?". And me
going, "huh, mildly interesting"

These days people choose weird things to focus on. To the point where they
will correct you if you say Spanish Flu like its offensive.

There's is definitely an effort to remove any instance of "The <country name>
<disease name>". Regardless of accuracy. Renaming something isn't inherently
political, but the choice of which misnamed things to rename is political.

~~~
SilverCurve
It's more like people are talking about the Spanish flu a lot, and at the same
time realizing that the "Spanish" part actually misinformed them.

I was talking to someone about the Spanish flu and they casually commented "oh
last time it's Europe now it's Asia's turn". Took me a few more minutes to
inform them it's not from Spain. Both of us now realized that's a bad name.
It's also the first time we mention "Spanish flu" in our lives, there's no
problem using a more accurate name.

I see this as a community effort to use a more convenient word. It's not that
political, no political party or government agencies are actively pushing for
it.

~~~
qqqqquinnnnn
I'd also add that there is a very real possibility of people using the origin
of the flu for political purposes - and it's worth asking yourself if you want
to play into that ugly game - left or right. Speak and think for yourself, and
recognize that language is the only thing we've got. What kind of person do
you want to be? What do you want your legacy to look like?

