jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

We've gotten to the point where Covid 19 is no longer a death sentence, but it can have long-term effects and linger on for a year or more. With the current symptoms being virtually identical to the common cold, people won't know if that sore throat is caused by a cold or by Covid. The long-term effects - "long Covid" - can be debilitating or mild. Doctors are now discovering that Covid can affect the brain, and that's never good.

We still have almost five hundred active cases in each of the local counties, but those are just the official numbers. You can probably triple that number to get an actual count. Although the number of deaths has declined, we still have the occasional death in each county. When you go out in public with "a cold," are you going to give someone a cold or Covid? For most people, it seems that Covid comes and goes after a week, but other people suffer severely for weeks. I still see a few people wearing masks in stores, although I no longer do. I've had four shots, and I'm going to get the new one next week, as recommended by my doctor.

Any way you look at it, Covid is a horrible disease that has killed almost seven million people worldwide, and that's just the official count. Delayed medical procedures have also caused many deaths. Whatever you think about Covid, it is still a serious disease, and you should take precautions.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

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robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

And compared to the "Spanish Flu" of 1918 to 1921 it is a pussycat. But as my wife the retired RN says, who knows what the Spanish Flu would have been like with modern medicine as compared to back then before the vast majority of our "miricle drugs", respirators etc.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

With all the miracle drugs we have today, it was human nature that let Covid spread so far and so fast. When it began, I predicted that it would last as long as the 1918 Flu, despite advances in medicine.

I don't call it the Spanish Flu. I call it the 1918 Flu. It most likely began in an army camp in Kansas, but Americans don't want to admit that.

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

I watched a good documentary a few months ago jerry that explained that particular outbreak. It seems it started out (they think) on a poultry farm in Kansas where the virus jumped from the birds to a farmhand, who later joined the US army, it then spread to others in a training camp, and then was carried over the pond in transport ships to France, where it spread like wildfire in the trenches, even over to the German trenches. Both sides kept it quiet as they didn't want the news to break out that they were weakened by the outbreak...But in Spain (which was neutral) their press reported this deadly virus, and so it was called the 'Spanish Flu'.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

What I have read is it came out of SE Asia to the US Army and spread from there as troops moved around and then even more came into France with labor battalions of SE Asian colonial troops brought to Europe. From there it spread through troop movements, Army to Army etc. It got named the "Spanish Flu" because Spain being a neutral and not in the war did not censor their newspapers from writing about it. The engaged nations kept news clamped down to prevent the other guys from learning how far down their manpower was due to the flu.

What I was referring to was how big a % of the world population got it and the death rate. Something like 1/3 of the entire world population got that flu and depending on whose death figures you use (a lot are estimates due to poor or no record keeping in many places) was from 14/15 million worldwide to as much as 45 million with at least one guy saying it could have been 150 million worldwide. World population in 1918 was aprx. 1.8 billion, while today it is 7.8 billion or so. So multiply today's Covid numbers by about 4.3 to get what we would have if it was as bad as the 1918-1921 pandemic. Of course, better medical care etc. might or might not have had as big or bigger an impact on the Flu as on Covid. So it will always be guesstimates etc. when comparing the two. The best study I found states that the death rate from Covid is almost exactly 1/3 the death rate from the Flu in the US

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

One medical historian speculated that it might have been two similar strains of flu, one from the US and one from SE Asia, that merged in the armies on the Western Front and then took off to cover the rest of the world all over again as a hybrid super flu. I know they do testing on exhumed corpses from that period because medical samples either were not taken or no longer exist.

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

We will never know for certain Robert, as it happened over 100 years ago. I think one day a virus will finish us all off, just hope I'm not around to see it start.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Second that.

FreddB Loc: PA - Delaware County

It will start in Derry, ME 👹👹👹