The following is a good summary and example of why we all need to NOT travel right now which I and my family are doing. It is sort of travel-related and hopefully good information for you.
The Spanish Flu in many ways was very similar to the CoVid-19 pandemic. It was highly infectious, people got very sick very quickly. Young people died and Cytokine storm deaths were recognized. 50 million people all over the world and 675,000 Americans died. This was a time remember of much lower populations and fewer high rises. To predict a worst-case scenario one only needs to look at Philadelphia and St. Louis. Philadelphia held a war bond parade on September 28, 1918, despite 647 cases of Spanish Flu in the town of a population of 1.5 million. St. Louis canceled their parade. The result? Within 3 days all 31 Philadelphia hospitals were full and closed for any additional patients. First responders went around town trying to help where they could and do contact tracing and found entire families dead in their homes. Within one week 45,000 citizens were known infected. By the second week in November 12,000 were dead and bodies were piled on sidewalks as morgues were full. Within 5 months 500,000 Philadelphians were infected and 16,000 were dead. St. Louis had 1/8 the cases. The only difference was one(1) parade. For Philadelphia that translates into 1/3 of the population was infected and 1.06% of the total population died. Extrapolate that to just New York State and Florida both of whom rounded off have approximately 20 million residents would mean in each state 6 million people would get infected and 212,000 people would die in each STATE. So how does the initial projection of 200,000 dead Americans in 50 States sound to everyone now? Was it scare tactics. Was it a worst-case scenario. Was it overblown? Don't think quarantine works. Researchers have now found that cities that quarantined the sick and shut schools, churches, theaters in 1918 saw a 50% lower death rate than those who did not. Milwaukee had the lowest death rate of 0.6% where schools, bars, public places were all closed after the first cases were reported and people were told to shelter in place and stay home. FYI another study just released confirmed the importance of Vitamin D that many are deficient in. The study found that nations with the lowest Vitamin D levels, Italy, Spain, and France have the highest death rate. Brown skin people are particularly deficient and also don't absorb it orally well. I currently recommend everyone take 4000 international units a day or 50,000 international units monthly. Brown people should probably take a little more than that, maybe 5000 international units a day or 50,000 international units twice a month.
Good analysis.
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