Fauci says COVID-19 can be as serious as the 1918 flu pandemic

Tom Ojimek
Epoch Times

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently suggested that the outbreak of COVID-19 could approach the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 in terms of severity, and government intervention He expressed his hope that it would prevent such results.

Mr Forch, speaking at a webinar on Georgetown University’s Global Health Initiative on Tuesday, called the outbreak of COVID-19 a “historical pandemic.”

“The numbers are pretty stable. In this US epidemic, there were over 135,00 deaths. There were over 3 million cases. Globally, nearly 600,000 were killed and about 1300. There are between 1 and 14 million infected people, so this is a historical ratio of pandemics, and that fact cannot be denied,” Fochi said.

“This is comparable to what was seen in 1918 in history,” he added, describing the influenza pandemic that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls “the most serious pandemic these days.” I mentioned. history. “It is estimated that about 500 million people, or about one-third of the world’s population at that time, were infected by the H1N1 virus of avian origin.

“Today, looking at the scale of the 1918 pandemic, 50 to 75 million to 100 million people died worldwide, which is the mother of all pandemics and truly historic. That was a good thing,” continues Fauci.

“I hope this doesn’t even work on it, but it has the rationale for taking it seriously…” Forch compared the two outbreaks and added. It is planned to happen, and once implemented, it will never happen. “

Fauci also noted that two similarities between the 1918 pandemic and the COVID-19 epidemic were caused by a new virus that both leapt from animals to humans and then spreads easily among people. ..

“It had two features that made it a complete storm,” Fauci said of the 1918 pandemic. “It’s a species-jumping virus, but it has a pretty effective and efficient way to spread from person to person, at the same time, with a fairly high degree of mortality.”

“It’s not serious to some,” he said about COVID-19, “but it’s deadly to others.”

Of the 121,374 deaths previously reported to the US National Center for Health Statistics related to COVID-19 in the United States, about 97,000 are in people over the age of 65, according to the CDC. People over the age of 85 accounted for 40,125 COVID-19s Only 1,032 died under the age of 35.

Fauci urged wearing masks to protect more vulnerable populations, although young people have a lower prevalence of symptoms. This is because even though young people are at low risk of getting sick, they can spread deadly bugs to others.

“They need to understand, given the nature of the outbreak, they are inadvertently transmitting a pandemic, even when they are infected, asymptomatic, and never get sick,” Fauci said in a healthy and “don crowd. Sip my Margarita in the.”

“Maybe it’s not a problem for you because you probably don’t have any symptoms, but you can get infected. Then you become a vulnerable person who can get infected, get sick, get hospitalized, and die. “, he added.

“You are not only increasing the outbreak, but putting other people at risk,” Forch said, telling young people about their “social responsibility” and taking precautionary measures such as wearing a mask. Urged him to take action.

“Don’t worry about getting infected is not a good way to control the outbreak,” he said.

“I’m not blaming anyone. I think people are doing this innocently. It doesn’t mean they are part of the problem, but carelessly they are part of the problem,” he said. It was