In the United States, the Covid has killed more people than the Spanish flu … and in France? – LCI

Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has been hit hard by Covid-19. With 676,059 deaths, the country has the heaviest death toll in the world, ahead of Brazil (590,955) and India (445,133). Since Monday and according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which is a reference in the matter, this same assessment has also deprived the Spanish flu of its title of the most serious pandemic in recent history in the United States, which had affected nearly 40% of the population with a death rate of 5%.

According to historians and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, America’s leading health agency, the flu killed 675,000 people nationwide between 1918 and 1919. What about in France?

In France, the Spanish flu toll is a little lower than in the United States. Arrived in France through American soldiers, the virus was spotted in the spring of 1918 in contingents of the 3rd Army, near Compiègne. According to the lecturer in the history of science Guillaume Lachenal, who describes the epidemic in an article published on the vie-publique.fr website, “a first wave spread across the whole country, then the epidemic seemed to be on the decline. But a second wave struck with surprising violence from August 1918, and exceptionally high mortality; it peaked in October. In 1919, a third wave accompanied the demobilization. “

According to estimates, between 210,000 and 408,000 people have been killed by the Spanish flu in France, including Guillaume Apollinaire and Edmond Rostand. This is more than a year of fighting in World War I, but less than the Covid-19 epidemic. Since the start of this latest pandemic, in December 2019, Public Health France has recorded 116,050 deaths linked to the virus.

However, it seems rather difficult to compare the results of these two pandemics without taking into account the two very different times at which they occurred. During the Spanish flu, the Earth was populated “only” by 1.8 billion human beings who lived more in the countryside than in the cities, where the density of inhabitants per square kilometer is higher, allowing a greater great spread of the virus. Proportionally, the more than 6 million deaths associated with it therefore still classify it as the deadliest epidemic in the history of mankind, compared to the 4.7 million deaths from Covid-19 in a population of close of 8 billion people.

Advances in medicine should not be overlooked in this comparison either. They are reflected in particular in a spectacular increase in life expectancy. In the space of 100 years, the latter has progressed by almost 30 years for the French. During the pandemic, they saved thousands of lives, unlike what could have been done during the days of the Spanish flu. The exceptional health measures taken, such as successive confinements, have also made it possible to limit mortality. According to work carried out by researchers from the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP) in 2020, the first containment alone has “allowed to avoid 61,739 hospital deaths”.

Finally, if travel around the Globe had been as important at the beginning of the century as it is now (tourism, business, etc.), there is no doubt that the Spanish flu pandemic would have been even more deadly than it has been. ‘has been.

In addition, the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, still provisional, could be largely underestimated. A study published in May in the medical journal BMJ estimates the excess mortality at nearly one million deaths in 2020 alone for 29 rich countries, or 31% more than the number of official deaths from Covid-19.

The toll of the Spanish flu also remains uncertain. While doctors at the time found that it weakened organisms, many people died in the following decade from the virus, especially women during childbirth, reports the national archives portal. This weakening of the immune defenses linked, among other things, to the Spanish flu, combined with the difficult 5 years of conflict as well as the interaction with diseases very present at the time, such as tuberculosis, also led to many deaths as a result. pneumonia or a bacteriological complication. This is why the most recent research estimates the long-term deaths caused by this epidemic at almost 100 million.