The Coronavirus Has Killed More Americans Than Any Flu Season Since 1918
We’ve reached a grim coronavirus milestone
By surpassing 116,000 this summer, Covid-19 deaths in the United States officially exceeded the number of total deaths from flu outbreaks or any other infectious disease outbreak in a single year or season since the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. And the Covid-19 death toll has also now exceeded the total number of Americans killed in WWI.
Already, the pandemic had surpassed the combined U.S. deaths from the entire Vietnam and Korean wars, on both total numbers and per capita. And while deaths per capita were higher in the 1957–58 flu season than in the current pandemic, this one is far from over, experts say, and if the current wave continues into fall, as health experts expect, that per capita milestone will be surpassed, too.
While no single statistic tells the tale of Covid-19, I sought some perspective on deaths in relation to total population figures at the time various events occurred. The chart, which shows death rates as a percentage of the entire population at the time, is not intended to shed light on how or when physical…
