Spanish Flu: The First Wave

These aren’t normal times.

I know a lot of readers miss my history articles. I’m focused squarely on the present at the moment because we are witnessing a historic event playing out.

Gregory Cochran:

“I’ve noticed that people’s sense of time, including my own, is all messed up.

A comparison: in the US, the number of Cov-19 deaths has gone from about 300 to ~95,000 in two months.

The 1918 flu: First noticed on March 11, Fort Riley. Maybe a few hundred deaths in the spring of 1918. Really took off in September (12,000 deaths) – six months later, not two. …”

The Spanish Flu was the deadliest epidemic in American history.

In the first wave of the Spanish Flu, only a few hundred people died in the United States. The outbreak was spotty. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that we know New York City was hit in the spring of 1918. The flu seemed a little worse than usual but it was nothing remarkable at the time. By comparison, the spring wave of COVID-19 has killed nearly 100,000 Americans in two months.

Unz.com:

“As data has crept in over the past few months, it has become incontrovertibly clear what we already kind of knew since the Princess Diamond days – that IFR is ~1%.

Consequently, unless Corona mortality “hotspots” were a figment of our collective imaginations, the percentage of people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus in most places around the world, even in hard-hit countries, are still in the single digit percentage points (often low single digit). Outside a few towns in Northern Italy, the hallowed “herd immunity” is still a mirage. …

The case for low spread coupled with IFR = ~1% is now overwhelming.

Incidentally, 1% is what I estimated in the earliest days (Jan 29). I likewise firmly dismissed the theories based on underpowered/unrepresentative initial seroprevalence tests (most notable the Stanford study) that a large part, or most, of many European and American populations had already been infected that were in vogue in March/April.

I will subsequently not waste words on caveats or substantiation when using this 1% figure.”

High IFR.

Low prevalence.

Once again, I can’t stress enough that at this point into the Spanish Flu no one saw the train coming. There wasn’t a month long lockdown to stop the spread much less 100,000 deaths. Even at this stage, this is already worse than that. Most people don’t understand the gravity of the situation.

Is there anything else in history which has killed so many Americans in such a short period of time? Smallpox? Cholera? Tuberculosis? Typhoid fever? Polio? Yellow fever? Malaria? HIV? I’m drawing blanks. Maybe the Columbian exchange with American Indians. This certainly hasn’t happened since the Spanish Flu. The 1957 and 1968 pandemics didn’t kill this many people in such a short period of time.

I know people are sick and tired of hearing about the coronavirus. You have a front row seat though to watch one of the biggest events in American history. This is going to kill more Americans than WW1 and maybe even more than the Spanish Flu. I call that a pretty big deal.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

13 Comments

  1. Well, it is not only in USA. I have colleagues arguing what kind of epidemic is this, if we have only few hundreds deaths. Lockdown wasn’t necessary. Mind you, these are people in 50. I’m tired arguing about covid-19. I make sure that my family is safe. Other people can burn down 5G towers.
    I am sure, Chinese noble man looked down and have similar opinions about gun boats arriving in China. Hubris.

  2. I’d urge you to ignore Cochran. He has begun abusing dissent commenters and deleting any comments that disproves his hypothesis on coronavirus. This is hardly the behaviour of a scholar and he losing a huge amount of credibility

    In terms of the epidemic daily deaths are about half of what they were 1 month ago. The trend throughout most of the world is down and it seems to keep going down even when countries re open after lockdown.

    He predicted 2 million deaths btw and it looks like it will max around 200k. Even if the current death rate continues for 3 years we would not reach the stupid numbers that guy predicted.

  3. The time lag is the important factor that people are not understanding. They think because states opened up and deaths didn’t immediately skyrocket that it is over and disappeared like a miracle. I predicted at the end of April that cases would stay steady through most of May and only start picking back up towards the end of the month because of the 2-3 week time lag. Now it is looking like that prediction will be accurate as it is beginning to increase in the South. In late May / early June. Just shaping up to be a normal summer flu season with 1% IFR out here. Nothing to be alarmed about. Trust the plan.

  4. It’s in the news that Chinese researchers believe the virus may be mutating and is under selection pressure toward an even longer symptom-less (or almost symptom-less) infectious incubation period, which would make it even harder to track and control. While most viruses are under selection pressure to become milder in order to spread further, but this virus need not become milder because it spreads further by its very long, slow, insidious, infectious incubation.

  5. The presentation Hunter quotes above from Anatoly Karlin on Unz, about the 1% covid-19 fatality rate … ignores what percentage of those fatalities have grevious pre-existing conditions, plus usually being elderly, or serious obesity. That figure is about 95% to 98%, so IFR for healthy people getting covid would be .05% or about a 1 in 2000 or even less chance of dying.

    In other words, functionally minor risk, with zero justification for lockdown / economic destruction.

    If half the world – 4 billion people – eventually get covid, the number of healthy people dead will be 2 million randos, in a world where 50 million plus people die every year, trending toward 100 million a year as populations age.

    Even that does not justify economic destruction for billions of people, with outright starvation underway for millions. Not to mention the surveillance / control grid / wealth transfer benefits acquired by the globalist oligarchy.

  6. I’m now wearing a mask and gloves inside all public buildings, and will continue to do so for the next 24 months, or until a vaccine is developed and tested successfully.

  7. Don’t forget to adjust for differences in population size when making comparisons with the Spanish Flu. Wuhan SARS might still be worse in the end, but it’s just something to keep in mind,

  8. But mass death and unemployment, as bad as they are, are only one small part of this.

    Yes, it is historic and in many ways unprecedented.
    Allow me, if I may, to offer some very real possible outcomes to this horror that is going to re-shape, and revolutionize our nation.

    This has a very good chance of happening in your lifetime….

    1. An end to our tolerance for black violence and criminality. In times of mass death and economic collapses, few societies have the tolerance for tolerating black gangs and their violent control of “inner cities.” The Covid-19 and it’s wake of devastation will make it easier to empower the police and troops to summarily execute black criminals without trials. If you doubt this, take a look at history.

    2. “Drag Queen Story Hour” and the NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) are never coming back. They and their supporters are history. Societies that experience mass death and disease have no tolerance for deviant groups or individuals corrupting their children. Look for labor camps and firing squads to dispense with any deviation from what is seen as normal and wholesome in the future after Covid-19.

    3. A new faith, “god” or religion to rise to ascendancy and gather millions of followers. History shows that when plagues and devastation ravage societies, the “old gods” are seen as failures, and new gods take their place. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity have no place in a post-Covid-19 America.

    4. Immigration is over. So is “diversity is our strength” nonsense. After Covid-19 has laid waste to the US and the world, NO ONE, is going to make the argument that the US “needs” Africans and Latins with IQs in the mid 60s range. Nope, not going to happen. Not with 40% unemployment and millions of dead US citizens.

    Now, I could be wrong. Maybe none of this will happen. But I believe that some of it will. History is very clear on that subject.

  9. In the news today: Trump demands that synagogues, mosques and churches be re-opened immediately.

    He said earlier that he wanted churches to be “packed by Easter,” and now there must be no more delay! Singing, coughing, sneezing, hand-shaking, and hugs in religious assemblies during the pandemic will start many clusters and set off explosions of the disease that can rid the U.S. of thousands or even millions of “expendables,” to the benefit of the elites who will snatch up foreclosed property at fire sale prices: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-slams-governors-demands-they-open-houses-of-worship-right-now/ar-BB14tjwH?ocid=ientp

  10. U.S. President Calvin Coolidge said “The business of America is business.” That includes religious businesses.

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