Covid 19 Ranks Among Deadliest Disease Outbreaks in History
Five years after the virus was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2025, worldwide deaths from Covid-19 are estimated at 19-36 million by sources like the World Health Organization and The Economist. This death count places the coronavirus among the deadliest disease outbreaks in recorded history. Epidemics and pandemics have taken their toll on humanity throughout the centuries and even though much has changed in the modern age, the devastation from the loss of life in disease outbreaks has remained the same.
Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, published data on the seven deadliest disease outbreaks in history in 2021 and even then, estimates of the extrapolated Covid-19 death toll already placed the pandemic among them. While Covid-19 might be more similar from an outbreak perspective to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920, another one is actually closer in time to it: The HIV/AIDS pandemic. First reported in 1981, the disease spread rapidly around the world and peaked at 1.6 million annual deaths in 2004. Since then this number has halved and experts believe that the pandemic as a public health threat can be ended by 2030 due to advanced medications and public health campaigns limiting the disease's spread. While fewer people die of AIDS today, the disease has claimed 27-48 million lives globally.
The outbreak on the list that claimed the most lives is the so-called Black Death plague epidemic that took place in Europe, North Africa and Asia in the Middle Ages, from around 1334 to 1353. The outbreak is estimated to have killed up to 200 million people, decimating the European population by 30 to 60 percent. There are actually three outbreaks of the plague, a bacterial disease, among the deadliest pandemics and epidemics in the world, also including the Plague of the Justinian in late antiquity (541-549) as well as a third outbreak of the disease in the 19th and 20th century, killing 12 million people mostly in India and China.
The latter was - together with the less deadly cholera and influenza outbreaks of the 19th century - the first pandemic that reached the entire world, while previous outbreaks were also often classified as Old World pandemics. The New World smallpox epidemic is an abnormality in this context, as it ravaged native American populations that did not have a built-up tolerance to the disease, killing 25 to 55 million people in the 1500s and 1600s. Finally, the Spanish flu is often called the first true pandemic as with the increased connectedness of the world in the 20th century came the faster spread of disease.
The words epidemic and pandemic refer to a sudden increase of the spread of an infectious disease, in a limited area or all around the (connected) world at the time. While some diseases can theoretically be eradicated, most can only be limited in their spread and are poised to keep existing, especially if they can be re-transmitted to humans from the environment. Five years after being declared as such, Covid 19 is still referred to as a pandemic by the WHO, but is not considered a global health emergency anymore
You will find more infographics at Statista
More than a million deaths from Covid in the US is a high number. It was impressive as we climbed into it. Yet now that the number of new deaths is relatively low, public and media attention has gone elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat seems partly due to the diminished personal threat but also do to the fact that many of us did not experience the death of a person whom we knew. Tom Blackburn is the only person whom I remember. I don't think there were any deaths in my family, and I don't remember the death of any persons from our parish whom I knew well.
I was astonished to see the figures for HIV aids. Again, I don't know anyone personally who died of HIV (other than movie stars). It seemed to me to be a disease of gay men and African women.
HIV Aids was a major event for the American Healthcare community. Betty lived through that and is why she studied and understood pandemics. Before HIV there was not that much concern about bodily fluids expect in cases when you knew someone was infected with something that you understood. Suddenly everyone was concerned that anyone might be inflected by Aids just as we became concerned about that anyone might be inflected with Covid.
The public seems to be on the road toward regarding pandemics to be of concern only to niche populations, American gay men, African women, the elderly and immunocompromised.
This may be leading us into minimizing the potential impact of pandemics. Future pandemics may impact children and the workforce with the same force as Aids and Covid have impacted subpopulations.
I don't think we are prepared for the far greater deaths that future pandemics may have on children and on the workforce either in terms of prevention or in being prepared for the aftermath.
Yes, how close people are to death has a lot to do with attitudes. I read Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year during COVID. We were just about as helpless in the face of our pandemic as London was in 1665.
DeleteThe big difference was that we now have hospitals and mortuaries where the sick, dying, and dead can be whisked out of sight. In 1665, people died at home and you left people out on the doorstep for the death wagons to collect. So nurses during COVID bore the biggest brunt of the death trauma for the rest of us.
In addition, the death rate for COVID is much lower than for bubonic plague in 1665. So you have many more people who got COVID and recovered.
Those factors--less contact with death and higher recovery rates--make it much easier for people to poo-poo COVID. And, of course, you have large numbers of people who believe the government lied about the morbidity and mortality rates.
PS, historical plagues must be the theme of the day. My Old English group just linked to a recent paper that shows new evidence that the Justinian plague was worse and more widespread than previously thought: https://www.zmescience.com/science/justinian-plague-spread-history-2524245342/
DeleteI didn't have any family members who died of Covid. We did have parishioners who did. Early on there were many critically ill people in our community who were hospitalized. A state legislator from our town was in the hospital for five weeks. The disease is still present but it seems to have morphed to a less dangerous form now. Nearly all of my family members have had Covid by now, some of them two or three times. I and my husband had it in December of 2022. None of us were anti-vaxxers, we all had multiple vaxxes and boosters. Which is probably why none of us were that seriously ill. Some of us had Paxlovid, which shortened the duration and symptoms.
ReplyDeleteCovid is counted among the deadliest pandemics because of the number of people who died. That is partly because there were more people in the world who could catch it than in some of the previous pandemics. If we look at fatalities as a percent of those who caught it, a different picture emerges. Percent fatality of those who caught bubonic plague was something like 40-60%. With smallpox it was similar, and even worse among the native Americans. Even at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, at its worst, the percent fatality was around 3-5%. Which is certainly bad enough, but nothing approaching Ebola, which is 90-95% fatal (and we hope that Ebola never becomes a pandemic!).
All that being said, this is certainly a bad time to be bailing out of the WHO, and to be cutting funding and staff of the CDC, and having a mentally ill moron as head of HHS, . We lucked out this time that the % fatality wasn't something like 60%, like the plague. But as the saying goes, eff around and find out. And we have an administration full of people who are only too willing to do that.
My brother and sister in law had very serious cases of Covid in June 2020. They live in Arizona where lockdowns were ended after 3 weeks and nobody wore masks. Jean talked about the bodies in the streets during the Middle Ages. Phoenix ran out of morgue spaces so they were using refrigerated trucks to hold the dead until they could be cremated or buried. Fortunately my brother and his wife ( trump supporters and Covid deniers at that point) ) made it, partly because their son in California paid for a private service to visit them a couple of times with oxygen.
DeleteMy sister in law’s brother was less fortunate - he died in January of 2021 just before the vaccine rollout. Once the vaccine was available, my brother and his wife were first in line to get it.
A neighbor who refused to be vaccinated or wear a mask died of Covid. They were members of our parish, but I didn’t know them well. His wife did get vaccinated and wore a mask. She sold their house and moved away.
I have never gotten Covid. My eldest son’s wife never did either. Of. Ourselves we took all of the recommended precautions including vaccines when available, masks etc. But my son and children did eventually get mild cases of Covid.
New York was using refrigerator trucks for bodies as were other cities where the first round of covid was swamping morgues. But these were kept behind privacy fences and out of sight.
DeleteThe anti-vaxxers are morons, but no point wasting your breath on them if their doctors can't persuade them that they have a civic duty to protect others. I avoid the NoVaxxers in my family. I don't miss the fighting, the drinking, the germs, the intrigue, or the aggravation. It's not like they'd show up at my deathbed to do anything but try to wangle Gramma's jewelry out of me.
Here is an interesting podcast with Sarah Longwell interviewing Dr. Leana Wen, a public health expert. They discuss the psychological effects of the pandemic, and the related unresolved trauma. Which has led to distrust of science and medicine, and authority in general, and has been perhaps a factor in Trump's re-election.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xo19499bPCU
Covid was a terrible scourge among the elderly who already had other health issues (which of course is extremely common). But because of isolation policies, these deaths in hospitals and nursing homes did not make the same personal and spcial impact that might otherwise have been the case on the younger and healthier. People died out of the views both of individuals and the media. The compelling personal story aspect for loved ones wasn't there.
ReplyDeleteThe healthcare workers who willingly isolated themselves to tend to the isolated were heroic. I think they are under-appreciated.
I have a young relative who was a healthcare worker during the pandemic (she is still in that line of work). She was also pregnant and gave birth to her child during the lockdown. Unfortunately her marriage did not survive very long after that. (Of course family members have their opinions about her ex!) But I do think there was a psychological toll that we are still dealing with.
DeleteThere was much discussion of whether someone died "of" Covid or "with" it. Which I consider hair splitting. For instance, an elderly deacon in our parish, who was a friend, would be considered to have died "with" Covid. He had many health problems, any one of which could have contributed to his death. But it is indisputable that Covid hastened it. Younger people who didn't have other health problems also died of Covid. So whether a death was premature, or untimely, the bottom line is the same.
"People died out of the views both of individuals and the media. The compelling personal story aspect for loved ones wasn't there."
DeleteNot sure what this means. Our deaths need to make a good story before our loved ones will feel bad about it?
I am, of course, under no illusion that if I died tomorrow, people would say, "Well, she was getting old and she already had the cancer ..." Just how it is when you're over the hill.
Happy St Patrick's Day. I have very ambivalent feelings abt my mother's Irish roots and her nutty family, but I enjoyed this video from Ireland made during the pandemic. DEI warning for the unwoke!
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/TascsWZPj8U?si=ZUVqQ4ixCR_FgANf
Thanks Jean, I love that song!
DeleteThe hymn is supposedly based on writing by St Patrick. It's nice. Maybe good to note that, St P, himself enslaved by Irish pagans, escaped and then returned to Ireland to preach against slavery. Manumission and the dignity of all people in the eyes of God was also a theme of the Irish missionaries to northern England. This was a time when slaves may have been subject to human sacrifice, certainly by the Druids in Celtic areas, though thought to be much less common among Anglo-Saxons.
DeleteErin go bragh!
ReplyDeleteMy mother’s parents were second generation Irish. I’ve always been fascinated by this as the Irish came through to me in my looks, but, also in my temperament I think. On the other side I have German roots - the paternal grandparents died before I was born as did my Irish grandfather- I only knew my Irish grandmother. My paternal grandfather immigrated from Germany . His wife was born in Minneapolis of German immigrant parents. My mother was a natural redhead - not a carrot top fortunately. Her father was about 6’4” and was called Big Red by his friends I was told. I’ve always been incomfortable with the German heritage and very grateful that my German grandfather got here in the late 1880s. He wasn’t in either world war, but I suspect some of our extended family in Germany of my dad’s generation were. Some of the German extended family tracked our family here down in the 1990s. My maiden name is extremely rare . I am related by blood to every person in the US with German heritage with my family name. There are some with the same name of Dutch heritage. The German family genealogist in Düsseldorf wanted to fill in some blanks and find the branch of the family that had moved to America. They eventually found our family - a reverse genealogy hunt.
We’ve traveled extensively during the last 50 years including at least 15 or so trips to England, plus Wales and Scotland. But never across the Irish Sea. We’ve been to Germany several times also. Right now I’m planning trips - New England to see friends and also our French “daughter” in Maine in June . The one fired from her USAID work in Africa. I want to plan a trip to Ireland too - maybe next fall. It’s been on my bucket list for years.
Next January in Florida. It’s a lot harder to do with. Paralyzed husband, but I’ve found two specialized travel sites for wheelchair travel. They help people like us.
One of my favorite Irish blessings ( there are many)
May your troubles be less,
Your Blessings be more,
And nothing but happiness
Come through your door ☘️
My mother's aunts Grace and Agnes lied and embellished so much about their Irish family that it was hard to untangled the real story. I have come to understand that the lies were their way of trying to exorcise the family instability and trauma that they brought with them on the boats Over Here. I have seen photos of the Famine Memorial in Dublin. Saddest thing I ever saw. People kicked out of their homes and country for being poor and hungry. Took the Irish over 100 years to accept their collusion with all that and to stop telling themselves they were well rid of the riff-raff forced onto the coffin ships.
DeleteInteresting about your German last name. I seem to be related to every "Deits" in America, but pronounced "deets," not "dytes," like in German. Kind of a mystery family, though. A relation out in Oregon told me it was shortened from "Deitschild." Like your name, it seems to be both Dutch and German.
Well, the borders now and the borders then were a lot different and I suspect that the Germans with our name and the Dutch were probably related at some point. Even adding the two nationalities together there are relatively few people with the name in Europe also. We are related to all of the German heritage folk in this country with our name but also those in Germany who have the name.
DeleteJean, do you know what part of Ireland your relatives came from?
DeleteMy husband's. great-great grandfather (maybe one more great? I'm not sure) came through Ellis Island. Some of his family tried to trace the roots back farther than that, but it turns out there were a lot of Patrick McGowan's came through Ellis Island in the same time frame. My Danish grandfather came through Ellis Island too, a lot later. Even though one out of every seven Danes is named Nielsen we were still in contact with some relatives over there, so we knew which town he was from.
Abigail Alexander boarded in Belfast (but that doesn't mean she lived there) and came over at 17 with her 19 year old sister. Name suggests they were Scots-Irish Protestant. Their ship came thru Ellis Island. On board were also several women surnamed Little, same as Robert Little, the man she later married. I would not be surprised if these families knew each other.
DeleteHe came thru Canada, was quarantined for typhoid in Montreal where the nuns took care of him. Typhoid was common on the ships because people were already half starved and the water was bad.
He then showed up in Michigan, but there are no naturalization papers, and my guess is that he was basically an illegal alien. He was several years older than Abigail. Aunt Agnes said he was a Catholic, but Aunt Grace said Aunt Agnes was a liar.
Robert never reported his country of origin the same way twice to the census takers, which also suggests he was nervous about his resident status. He variously reported his birthplace as Canada, Michigan, Ireland, or the Irish Free State. The Irish Free State did not include the Ulster counties. So who knows??
Anne, I hope you get to go to Ireland. I haven't been there, but some of my family have, and they loved it.
DeleteHad a chance to go to Ireland, but was at the height of the Troubles, and my Canadian boyfriend talked me out of it. The countryside looks pretty.
DeleteJean, depending on when they came there were no restrictions . They were checked for TB and they had to have a small amount of money. If they passed these minimums they could get off the ship. No visas in the 19th century.
DeleteInteresting. Not sure if people had papers and a probationary period before they were naturalized or what the citizenship process was. There was a section on some census forms to indicate whether someone had been naturalized. Ancrstorsbwho came in the colonial period have to have character testimonials to get land.
DeleteAlso, though poor, your ancestors and mine were not the poorest. Those who managed to scrape together the fare to go to America in steerage were the better off of Ireland’s poor Catholics. The Irish Protestants who were settled in the north by the Crown were much better off because they were essentially paid to move there from Scotland, given farms seized from the Catholics. It’s a bit like what Israel does in Palestine - take the property of the Palestinians and give it to Israeli settlers.The top of the bottom heap Catholics went to America. Those closer to the bottom, with a couple of coins, went to England, especially the Manchester and Liverpool areas. The poorest Catholics stayed there and starved.
DeleteNuala O'Faoilin in "My Dream of You" goes over a lot of the politics of the Famine and includes some of what you describe. During the famine, some of the Irish were forced onto the boats "by invitation" (which meant that their fares were paid by the govt for to get rid of them) and sent to Canada, Australia, and the U.S.
DeleteWhatever the deal was with my particular ancestors, the booze and depression kept them in abject poverty in northern Michigan. It's a terrible legacy. Me, my brother, and cousins are five generations out, but half of us are alcoholics with jail time, all of us have tempers, most have at least one failed marriage behind us, two of our children's generation have committed suicide. Terrible and shameful legacy.
I am of Irish heritage via my father's mother, but I don't know anything about how they came to the US. It was in the 19th century, I believe after the Famine.
ReplyDeleteThey did pretty well in the US. My grandmother's parents owned a dairy (founded, I think, by her dad's dad or grandfather). This was the pre-supermarket days; the dairy would deliver milk and butter door to door. It was one of 8-10 small dairy operations in the small city (Jackson, MI) which is my hometown. Her family apparently did well enough out of it to own a middle class home with Victorian furniture. The furniture was well-made enough to have survived until today. It was in my aunt's home until she died 1-2 years ago. None of my generation or the next generation wanted it, so it got auctioned away from the family.
My grandmother was of a higher social class than my grandfather; he was an immigrant from Belgium (his family immigrated after WWI - Belgium was kind of a wasteland as a result of the war). As a young couple during the Depression, my grandparents were so poor that when they socialized with other young couples, they couldn't afford to buy a bottle of soda pop, which I understand cost 5 cents at the time. They literally didn't have enough to rub two nickels together.
They prospered as they grew older - something I attribute to my grandmother. She was shrewd with money, buying and selling property around town, and buying all sorts of collectibles - she would have adored Antiques Roadshow. My grandfather started a manufacturing company with his older brothers. It did well for a while, then they sold it. I suspect my grandmother, and the wives of the other brothers, were among the prime movers in that venture; I think my grandfather would have been content to spend his adulthood in taverns.
Sounds like they settled in the Irish Hills area of Michigan, between Jackson and Ann Arbor. In the fall we used to visit beautiful scenic Hell in the heart of the Irish Hills and stop at the fam Site Inn for chili.
DeleteJean, your Canadian boyfriend was probably right about not visiting Ireland during the Troubles. At least not Northern Ireland., According to my son who has visited Belfast on business, the legacy of the Troubles can still be felt there. He was visiting in August a few years ago and was advised to cut his business short because there was going to be some sort of Orangemen parade .
DeletePBS has an excellent documentary about the Troubles - it’s called Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland. It’s still available for streaming with Passport?
I wouldn't want to be in Belfast for the Orange parades July 12. I think I've seen that documentary. The one where the Protestant thugs beat up grieving families in the Catholic cemetery? By the same token, read "Say Nothing," and you'll wonder why Jerry Adams has been allowed to whitewash his reputation after radicalizing youngsters and ordering executions for the IRA. Both extremist groups are dupes of English manufacturing interests playing them off against each other to keep Protestants loyal for their management jobs and Catholics at low wages to rake in $$. I do think that the north counties have seen prosperity and good management in the Republic long enough to begin to realize (especially after Brexit) that maybe hanging with the UK is not a huge advantage anymore.
DeleteThe documentary that I saw on PBS was a series of interviews of people involved on both sides. The interviews were filmed to increase the drama . The interviewee, seated in a chair with a spotlight ( almost like an interrogation) with the interviewer off s teen in the dark. Some of those interviewed spent time in prison. The interviews were interspersed with news footage of the events they participated in - bombings etc. Some expressed regret for their role in the troubles, some doubled down as angry as ever.
DeleteI don’t remember thugs beating people in Catholic. cemeteries , but there were funeral and cemetery scenes. They featured a real club where Catholic and Protestant young people met to socialize and dance without parents knowing. That interested us because one summer we hosted the daughter of English friends who had been working as a camp counselor in Maine. She brought a friend, another counselor, who was from Belfast.They were working for the summer ( legally) under a program called British Universities North America Exchange . American college students went across the pond the other way to work for the summer. The girl from Belfast was Protestant. She told us about the secret socializing and clubs in Belfast. She had a number of Catholic friends. She said that you got used to living your normal life knowing that a bomb might go off in the store you’re in at any moment. And always keeping secrets from your parents - and neighborhood and community - about the “enemy” friends in the social clubs. She couldn’t believe that my husband was Protestant and that I was Catholic,, that this was not uncommon in the US, and that our marriage was ok with both our families.. She was adamant that this was the way it SHOULD be and that she hoped that someday it would be in Belfast too.
Maybe it wasn't the same doc. Seems like it might have been a Frontline episode. Long time ago, anyway. I hope you will enjoy visiting there some day.
DeleteThe documentary I saw is still available for streaming. I thought it was very powerful.
DeleteI want our life to go back to some kind of normal. We can no longer just make a plane reservation, pack suitcases and take off. But we can travel again with a lot of help, planning, and more money. Our days of free and cheap airfares are behind us. But . We need a bit of our old life. So Ireland is on the list. We’ve been to England, France Germany , Italy etc many times. We’ve visited Poland, Croatia, and other Eastern European countries, Japan, Australia, and several Caribbean islands.
But we’ve never been to Ireland. So we will go. I hope.
. We don’t have many years left. We didn’t even before the fall. So while we can’t go back to our old life we can still live and do things that we’re important to us before - like Cape Cod in the summer, a warm place in the winter, and trips to Europe. We can go downtown to the National Cathedral for daytime concerts and events, meet friends for lunch, even though not for dinner.
Have a life, not just live.