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Covid-19 has quickly become one of the most common causes of death in the world this year. But the death rate from the virus cannot be compared to previous pandemics, says historian Dick Harrison.
Burial of a Belgian citizen who died in the covid-19 suites. Stock Photography.
During one of the most difficult weeks in April, around 50,000 people died on covid-19. It places the disease on the fifth list of causes of death, just above dementia and slightly above malaria, killing about 12,000 people per week, according to figures from the 2017 Global Burden of Disease study, conducted by the IHME ( Institute of Metrics and Health Assessment).
The distance is still a long way from the most common causes of death: cardiovascular disease, cancer, and malnutrition, causing around 340,000, 190,000, and 126,000 deaths each week.
Covid-19 is classified as a pandemic. Among its predecessors of the 20th century are the Spanish disease (more than 50 million dead), the Asian disease (about five million dead) and the Hong Kong flu (approximately one million dead in the first year).
Dick Harrison, professor of history at Lund University, says that it is not possible to resemble covid-19 with these three pandemics.
– Today, the state is acting much more aggressively, decisively and intelligently, he says.
– The type of isolation strategies that begins immediately today is unparalleled. So you can’t compare death rates, because there are fewer people dying now than they would have otherwise. It is not because the state is powerful, but because it has information channels.
According to Dick Harrison, since the Middle Ages, people have not wanted to remember pandemics.
– He does not believe, for example, that we should have the potential to produce vaccines quickly, when it reaches the national level, or that we should have stocks of rations, he says and continues:
– We are not building for this to come back, and this is a mistake you have made all along. It is a lesson that hopefully one could take now.
Pandemic influenza
When a new type of influenza virus spreads and infects people in many parts of the world and has major consequences for our society, it is classified as a pandemic.
Three major pandemics occurred in the world during the 20th century: the 1918 Spanish disease caused by influenza A (H1N1), the Asian disease of 1957 A (H2N2) and the Hong Kong influenza of 1968 A (H3N2). A new pandemic virus usually competes with the previous seasonal influenza virus and after a few years it becomes established as a variant of seasonal influenza.
Source: Public Health Authority
