BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Do you worry about flu pandemic?

It is scary that so many who died then were young, but I think many were WWI soldiers who had been living in squalid conditions. Plus the population as a whole was younger back then. I'd be curious to know 1918 statistics of what percentage of the civilian population died of the flu.

This was an article I read, for what it's worth, that put my mind at some ease:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9711922/site/newsweek/

Countries still need to be vigilant, and one thing that does worry me is that, if no human virus turns up in the near future, people and governments will get complacent and not be as vigilant in terms of watching for a pandemic.

Susan,

I am reading the article,

+++The terrifying 1918 bug, for example, killed only one in 100.+++

this may be misleading. The whole villages were killed. Maybe this statement means that 1% of the world population as the whole died as a result of the flu

That may be the case; indeed, they don't specify geographically where the 1% death rate refers to.