By Jeff Larson, The Back Pew
“The 2009 flu pandemic was the second H1N1 pandemic the world had seen — the first being the 1918 Spanish flu, still the most deadly pandemic in history. The 2009 pandemic was caused by a new strain of H1N1 that originated in Mexico in the spring of 2009 before spreading to the rest of the world. By June of that year, there were enough cases that the World Health Organization declared the swine flu outbreak a pandemic. In the U.S., between April 2009 and April 2010, the CDC estimates there were 60.8 million cases of swine flu, with over 274,000 hospitalizations and nearly 12,500 deaths — that’s a mortality rate of about 0.02%. The mortality rate for the novel coronavirus is much higher so far, around 2% (although the number will likely change as more people are tested). That may not sound like a big difference, but when extrapolated, can mean millions more deaths.”
Read: How does the COVID-19 pandemic compare to the last pandemic?
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