Spanish flu has become synonymous with a viral apocalypse and, now, with the Covid-19 pandemic. This false equivalence depends largely on a spurious statistic that should never have been published.

– Flu mortality as percent of all deaths, 1918: 17.9% (6,250 deaths) — 18.3 times the 1910 and 1917 average – Flu mortality as percent of all deaths, 1919: 7.9% (2,206 deaths) ...

Experts agree the Spanish flu occurred in multiple waves and that the second wave was significantly more deadly than the others. But it is false to attribute a specific number of deaths to each wave.

The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was caused by a particularly virulent strain of influenza virus. It infected 500 million people, caused around 50 million deaths, and its impact was so severe that ...

Stacker cited National Vital Statistics System mortality data between 1910-1925, digitized by the National Bureau of Economic Research, to look at how states were affected by the 1918 Spanish flu ...