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COVID-19 pandemic has killed as many Americans as 1918 Spanish flu pandemic

Posted at 2:35 PM, Sep 20, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-20 16:35:54-04

The COVID-19 pandemic has now killed roughly the same amount of people who died from the 1918 Spanish flu.

According to Johns Hopkins, more than 675,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

The Centers for Disease Control says the Spanish flu killed “about 675,000” people in the U.S.

With COVID-19 still surging in the U.S., it’s expected the death toll will only climb.

Prior to COVID-19, the CDC said the 1918 influenza pandemic was the “most severe pandemic in recent history.”

Ending the COVID-19 pandemic means different things to different people. Most medical experts believe COVID-19 will stick around, but it will be less severe.

“We hope it will be like getting a cold, but there’s no guarantee,” Emory University biologist Rustom Antia told The Associated Press.

A similar scenario ended the Spanish flu pandemic. The H1N1 flu virus still circulates today, but there are vaccines and natural immunity that have made it less severe.