Senior Beacon SB Eldest & Locally-Owned Senior Newspaper in Southern Colorado
OCTOBER 2020
Vol. 39:9
Established February 1982
465 Consecutive Months!
Committed To Southern Colorado Seniors For 39 Years And Counting!!
Fear Itself
SPANISH FLU The Spanish flu started in February 1918 and finished in April of 1920, officially. It infected around
THE MATH of the Matter PUEBLO COUNTY
Population 168,424 Deaths Survival Rate
EL PASO COLORADO COUNTY 720,403
WORLD
5.758M
7.686B
37
176
1,960
1.01M
99.978%
99.975%
99.965%
99.986%
M = millions B = billions Notes: Most data is for September 28th or October 1st, 2020, dependening on the source Survival Rate calculation: deaths divided by population, converted to percentage, then subtracted from 100 Sources: Population: U.S. Census, Wikipedia; COVID-19: Pueblo County Health Department press release, El Paso County Health Dept., Colorado.gov, Wikipedia
500 million people and killed from 17-50 million people and possibly reaching as many as 100 million deaths (1). The higher estimates are from studies as recently as 2005,
which could be believed as more accurate, assisted by improved methods of research. The Spanish flu, also called Brazilian flu, German flu, and the Bolshevik disease (1) created it’s own horrendous affects, ending in death, rather than exacerbating existing conditions and hastening death from those underlying conditions.
TRANSMISSION The 1910s and 1920s were vastly different than today, of course. The first trans-Atlantic flight was only in 1919. This was right in the middle of the Spanish flu pandemic. It carried no commercial passengers. There were perhaps a few dozen or few hundred people to ever fly commercially on a plane at this time. People stayed very close to home. We had virtually no commercial air traffic. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a government entity, we flew a total of 1,570,234,021 global passenger-miles in 2019. Do you think any of those were from and to China or the U.S.? Would passengers have been transmitting COVID-19? Is it possible to completely avoid a previously unknown virus without trying? The automobile was starting to grow in 1920. The Department of
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THIS CHILLING pandemic can be a benefit. We’re in a highly mobile, globalized world. There will be a time when we have a significant viral threat and our current preparations will serve us well. It’s nice to see hand sanitizers around every corner, plexiglass when people are coughing, gloves and cleanliness in restaurants as a rule and not as an exception. This looks like the start of a new industry. What it is not is a highly deadly pandemic. Even one death is tragic and too much but it must be put into perspective with neutral facts.