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1/ @BallouxFrancois - I am curious if you have examined other aspects of the 1889 Russian flu pandemic, which you mentioned here. There are several similarities to #SARSCoV2 which I think make the comparison quite compelling. https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1284513438706937857">https://twitter.com/BallouxFr...
2/ Age stratification: "The 1889-1890 pandemic probably originated in Central Asia (3) and was characterized by malaise, fever, and pronounced central nervous system symptoms (53). A significant increase in case fatality with increasing age was observed." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
3/ Fatality rate and rate of spread: "The median delay between the notification of the first case and the mortality peak was 5.0 weeks" and the fatality rate "mean was 0.17%, the median was 0.16% of the population, and the IQR was 0.13–0.25%." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889325/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
4/ Press: "At the beginning, newspaper reports were written in a rather reassuring tone, such as ‘the whole epidemic does not raise serious concern‘ ... but "the articles became more expressive, creating an image of impending and pervasive threat" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3867475/?fbclid=IwAR3FeuGd6F4Y8lmOzPABpA6pSM0_a6KqaDaGlPZwNgC0DK_ULTdc-tfOvEA">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
5/ Societal response: "[T]he epidemic had an influence on the economy, since the most striking symptom of the severity of the disaster was an unprecedented decrease of trade ... Education froze in a similar way, as all the high schools, middle schools, ... were closed."
6/ Overall impact: Despite this response, current estimates of fatality rate and infection prevalence seem to closely resemble #SARSCoV2 in aggregate (perhaps a bit lower with respect to overall fatality rate, but perhaps not, depending on assumption of asymptomatic spread:
7/ I will conclude with this account from a Connecticut physician: "the press made the matter still worse till everybody had it in imagination if not in reality" https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02484025/document">https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02484...
