Swine flu pandemic

[Torrain]

Hugely different disease. We have more safeguards against influenza as a whole, in the form of extensive hospital experience with the disease, and the existing infrastructure to develop vaccines on an annual basis. (For example, experts predict that in the event of a novel  influenza pandemic, a vaccine could be ready within six months).

Also, it’s far less virulent. Experts suggest that as many as 1.4 billion could have been infected by the virus, but to my knowledge, excess mortality did not spike beyond what we’d expect on a bad flu year. Only 0.5 million worldwide were recorded as dying of the specific swine-derived H1N1 strain that caused the pandemic - less than the death toll in the US alone from COVID-19.

Finally, influenza is less transmissible. SARS-CoV-2 has an r0 of 2.5 (each person infected infects around 2.5 others). The worse influenza pandemic (1918 “Spanish” Flu) had an r0 of only 2, and the 2009 strain had an r0 of only 1.5 - which means spread is far slower and less effective.