, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Although the raw numbers match, epidemiologists point out that 675,000 deaths in 1918 was a much greater proportion of the population. In 1918, the U.S. population was 105 million, less than one third of what it is today.
The AIDS pandemic of the 1980s remains the deadliest of the 20th Century, claiming the lives of 700,000 Americans. But at our current pace of 2,000 COVID deaths a day, we could quickly eclipse that death toll, too.
Even though the 1918 epidemic is often called the “Spanish Flu,” there is no universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, the almost incomprehensible loss harkens back to a time when medicine and technology were far less advanced than they are today.
In 1918, the United States didn’t have access to a vaccine, or near real-time tools to trace the spread and communicate the threat.
In some ways, the United States has failed to learn from the mistakes of the past.
There are many similarities between the two pandemics. In the spring of 1918, when the first wave of influenza hit, the United States and its allies were nearing victory in Europe in World War I. Just this summer the United States has ended its longest war, the conflict in Afghanistan, as COVID cases surge.
In both pandemics, hospitals and funeral homes were overrun and makeshift clinics were opened where space was available. Mask mandates were installed; schools, churches, and theaters closed; and social distancing was encouraged.
As is the case today, different jurisdictions took different steps to fight the pandemic and some were more successful than others.
According to History.com, in 1918, Philadelphia’s mayor said a popular annual parade could be held, and an estimated 200,000 people attended. In less than 2 weeks, more than 1,000 local residents were dead. But in St. Louis, public gatherings were banned, schools and theaters closed, and the death toll there was one eighth of Philadelphia’s.
Just as in 1918, America has at times continued to fan the flames of the epidemic by relaxing restrictions too quickly and relying on unproven treatments. Poor communication allowed younger people to feel that they wouldn’t necessarily face the worst consequences of the virus, contributing to a false sense of security in the age group that was fueling the spread.
“A lot of the mistakes that we definitely fell into in 1918, we hoped we wouldn’t fall into in 2020,” epidemiologist Stephen Kissler, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CNN. “We did.”
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.