The Bird Flu is Comming! The Bird Flu is Comming!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by katiesue

In 1918 wouldn't a larger portion of the population have been malnourished and have other medical conditions that would have weakened their defenses? Just wondering.

Oh, absolutely. I'm not arguing that the bird flu is likely to be as bad as the 1918 outbreak. But the " never more than a couple in 10,000" number (which is .02%) is shown to be clearly ridiculous by a simple look at history. I mean, he's off by a factor of 100 on that. Even if a modern-day flu pandemic is only half as deadly as 1918's, that's 50 times more than Mr. Longini's "facts".