In a saddening new revelation, numbers have gone to show that the coronavirus has killed the same amount of Americans as the Spanish influenza did in 1918, and will even overtake it in a couple of days.
Like the Spanish flu, the coronavirus may never entirely disappear from our midst. Instead, scientists hope it becomes a mild seasonal bug as human immunity strengthens through vaccination and repeated infection. That could take time.
“We hope it will be like getting a cold, but there’s no guarantee,” said Emory University biologist Rustom Antia, who suggests an optimistic scenario in which this could happen over a few years.
Source: AARP (ANTON PETRUS / GETTY IMAGES)
Despite the scientific advances of today’s day and age, the coronavirus has caused as colossal damage as the flu. Due to the more potent Delta variant, U.S. deaths still are running at over 1,900 a day on average, the highest level since early March, and the country’s overall toll stood at just over 674,000 as of midday Monday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, though the real number is believed to be higher.
As is predicted, winter may bring a new surge, with the University of Washington’s influential model projecting an additional 100,000 or so Americans will die of COVID-19 by Jan. 1, which would bring the overall U.S. toll to 776,000.
The 1918-19 influenza pandemic killed 50 million victims globally at a time when the world had one-quarter the population it does now. Global deaths from COVID-19 now stand at more than 4.6 million.
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