The relative increase in deaths in the early period of the Covid-19 pandemic was actually substantially greater than during the peak of the 1918 pandemic, according to the study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open.
Faust said by comparing the first two months of the New York pandemic with the least two months of the New York pandemic 100 years ago, the Covid-19 period had more than 70% as many deaths per capita.
“Who knows what would be the case if we did not have modern ICUs and we could not treat secondary infections with antibiotics or put people on fans or have oxygen,” Faust said. “If you compare these viruses side-by-side, without all the medical bells and whistles we have today, I would say that Covid-19 is worse.”
“We will never know for sure, because comfortably we have the ability to save more lives, but even with all our technology and medical advances, the death toll is 70% as bad as it was at the worst point in 1918, I think that people do not realize how serious this is, “Faust said.
Faust said some people might underestimate how bad this pandemic is because they portrayed a historic pandemic as a plague, like something from a movie where the choice pulls to the side of the road and catches bodies.
“That’s what those refrigerated trucks are outside the hospital, in fact,” Faust said.
The 1918 flu is estimated to have infected a third of the world’s population and caused some 50 million deaths. As with this pandemic, it affects some communities more than others.
This study only takes into account data specific to New York City. It cannot be used to characterize the extent of this pandemic in cities other than national. New York was hit hard in the pandemic early on, and since then, other cities have learned from what worked early, experts said.
Barry, who was not involved in the new study, said of other indicators that he thinks it is clear that the 1918 pandemic was “significantly more virulent” than the Covid-19 pandemic, at least for the country.
“I think when New York was hit, we still did not really know how to handle things. Since then, we have learned a lot more,” Barry said. “I think Covid-19’s cause of death in New York is probably higher … and that will be cut after that first wave of exposure, but even so, I was surprised that there is no greater difference in these figures.”
In terms of deaths, New York was better than many other cities in 1918, Barry said. The city was exposed to the virus in the spring and saw 33,000 dead in the course of the pandemic, which was a small number compared to some other cities.
Barry also said with the Covid-19 pandemic, doctors have more options to care for patients. There is no cure, but even the supportive care physicians giving patients now is much better than what patients had in 1918.
“In 1918, support care was non-existent,” Barry said.
Faust said what he most wants people to take away from this study is the understanding of just how serious this pandemic is.
“We do not have to wait until the end of it to look back and see that these events are in great comparison,” Faust said. “What I’m driving home here is that if we do not do something, if we do not take this really seriously, we could look at the same numbers we saw from 1918 a year from now.”
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