Swine flu

10's of millions dead is staggering. You should be scared by those numbers.

I agree it is staggering, but it is not the 'survivors' level as much of the media would have us believe. 10s of millions die from all sorts of shit every year and I am not scared.

68 Million dead is one in 100 (not one in 1000).

Fair point. I'm only an accountant. Want me to do your tax return?

1 person in every 100 on earth is an enormous death toll.

The world population during the 1918 pandemic was only around 1.5 billion - so back then the 50 million killed by that particular strain represented 1 person in every 30 on the earth.

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It's not a bad guide to the death toll possible from a pandemic like this, the previous H1N1 pandemic killed around 50 million (the 2nd half of C20 pandemics were not H1N1).

It is a bad guide - a huge amount of those deaths were from secondary infections that are easily treated in the modern day (the anitibiotics/chest infection example). This was not the case in 1918. The two other pandemics in the 20th century resulted in millions dead, not tens of millions. Whether this is because of a different strain or better treatment/prevention is a matter for conjecture - the fact is however those pandemics did not result in 1/30 fatalities. Standards of general healthcare, nutrition and secondary infection treatment (at least in the developed world) are much more advanced than they were 90 years ago - it is not therefore reasonable to use the fatality rate 90 years ago in the modern context. Some consideration must be given to clinical advances in the interim.

The basic point I was trying to make is that, even if it is a pandemic, it is not the doomsday scenario many people are envisaging. At least in the developed world.