Comparing pandemics

According to reports, the Covid pandemic has claimed somewhere between 5 and 10 million lives world wide in a population of some 7.9 billion. Estimates for the 1918 flu range between 50 and 100 million deaths in a population of 1.8 billion.

The progression of the 1918 flu was also faster, driven by unrestricted movement of troops on and between continents. The conduct of the Great War was a priority, giving the mutating bugs unrestricted access to the civilian population as well.

Only when things got really bad did authorities react with restrictive measures, by which time the brutal spread and death toll had created a considerable degree of herd immunity.

In contrast, public health measures were taken early on in the Covid pandemic across the world slowing down the progress of the virus and its mutants, giving it more time to change its strategy and become more infective and less lethal, serving its own ends for survival and multiplication, to the point where it is still alive and well in September 2022, but causing little concern in the general population.

In that sense, Covid has been more successful than its 1918 brother by ensuring its place in the human population, as long as hosts are available.

We humans should learn from Covid that destroying our own host, Gaia, our living Earth Mother, does not serve OUR interest.