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William Brangham:
Throughout this pandemic, it has been difficult to keep perspective on the true extent of the losses caused by COVID-19.
On the Washington Mall right now, artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg has planted an ocean of white flags, one for each life lost to the virus.
Another measure is a comparison to the past, and this week the United States matched the death toll from another terrible virus, the influenza pandemic of 1918.
For some perspective on yesterday and now, I am joined by Dr. Jeremy Brown. He wrote the book “Flu: The Hundred Years Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History”. And he is currently director of the Office of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr Brown, very happy to see you again.
We have now reached its ugly bar in the United States, where we have lost as many people to COVID as we have lost to the flu pandemic. But there are significant differences between the two, right?
Dr. Jeremy Brown, National Institutes of Health: Yes, indeed.
It is indeed horrible to speak at this terrible milestone, 675,000 deaths, the same number as the people who died in the United States during the 1918 pandemic.
But we must also remember that this pandemic is even less deadly than the terrible one of 1918. The population in the United States in 1918 was about 100 million. Today it is around 320 million. So if we put those numbers in proportion, then those 675,000 deaths 103 years ago, relatively speaking, would amount to some two million deaths today.
Fortunately, we are a long way from that number. But, despite everything, today’s numbers are a reminder of just how deadly COVID is.
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