Influenza doesn't need the unique circumstances of WWI to circulate every single year around the world. It doesn't need the unique circumstances of WWI to kill. It kills 20-40,000 every year just in the USA. And in 1918, the fatalities increased considerably in an age group not normally susceptible to fatal influenza.
I made no claim that influenza does not kill normally. Of course it does. The Spanish Flu was so severe because it bred itself in the trenches of WWI.
Unless those deaths were weary soldiers only (and they weren't) then it wasn't simply a matter of the population which differed.
You missed my point. The Trenches provided the breeding ground, with a large, weak population to grow in. Those soldiers headed home, and infected the ENTIRE population. And a primary reason for the high numbers of deaths was quarantine methods which put uninfected people in with infected people. In 1918 there was no way of determining what kind of illness a person had. The first viral test kit - for the Epstein-Barr virus - was developed by Gull Laboratories in the 1970's. If you stick a sick uninfected person in a room full of people infected with the virus,
of course they're going to contract it and die.
In addition, WWII didn't end with 50 million flu deaths. And, soldiers in some countries today live in conditions similar to those of the US and European soldiers during WWI without greatly increased flu fatalities such as those in 1918.
A statement like that reveals just how ignorant you are of conditions in the trenches of the Western Front. No war, before or since, has resulted in conditions like that. Slightly more men returned from WWII than WWI, but whereas the vast majority of WWI combatants had been located in a narrow strip, in the same abysmal conditions for years, combatants from WWII were spread across the entire globe in a rapidly changing front. In addition, advances in troop morale and medical research determined that those fighting in WWII were make better looked after (relatively speaking) than soldiers in WWI.
I challenge you to find me a single military conflict today that bears even remote resemblance to the Ypres Salient of late 1914 - 1918.
So it is more likely that the difference was the virus' lethality above all else.
The things which gave the 1918 pandemic its flavor included spread by large troop movements. Today we have jet travel. It marched from town to town in 1918. Today we have rapid dispersal. People work many miles from where they live rather than closer to home. Movement of people is in a tangled web pattern rather than more limited movement of growing up, living and dying in the same small town your parents lived.
At the end of World War One 57 million men, many of them infected with Spanish Flu, returned home and infected their nations. That amounts to about 3% of the world's population at the time.
Today, an estimated 750 million people travel by air every year - 12.5% of the world's population. Certainly this offers a method for rapid spread of the virus. The thing is, that's not enough. In the case of WWI, the vast majority of those 57 million men were from the same 100 mile wide strip of land which was infested with the virus.
The 750 million travelling every year by air not only go to every corner of the world, they COME from every corner of the world. By and large, they don't come from places with highly concentrated outbreaks of the virus already present.
In 1918 you had 3% of the world's population in one small area, infected with the virus, and then in the space of months, these people returned home all over the world. Such a scenario is highly unlikely to occur now. I cannot think of a single reason 180 million people all from one localised place, would travel all over the world in a short space of time. Can you?
In summary:
1) The Spanish Flu was provided with a large concentrated population (constituting a significant percentage of total global population) with very low immunity in which to grow and mutate itself virtually unhindered.
2) This population then spread itself across the world in a very short space of time.
3) Sick but uninfected people were quarantined with infected people and not treated.
The above are the unique circumstances that produced the 1918/19 Pandemic. These circumstances are highly unlikely to recreate themselves in today's society.
1) There is no current concentration, nor any logical reason for producing such a concentration, of a significant percentage of the world's population, with very low immunity and no action to prevent spread of the virus.
2) There is no reason for a large concentration of people from multiple countries, thus no reason for a rapid international spread of infected population, even were condition 1) met. Large concentrated populations with low immunity and poor healthcare tend to be poor population groups who cannot afford travel to other countries.
3) Modern treatment methods are far superior to those of 1918/19. Viral test kits were first developed in the mid 1970's, thus medical practitioners can determine precisely what virus a person has, and treat them accordingly. Those with other illnesses can also be identified, rather than being concentrated with infected persons.
Will a flu pandemic occur? Yes. Depending on how you define it, they occur every year. Will a flu pandemic kill a significant (+1%) percentage of the world's population? highly unlikely.
-Gumboot
