It took a couple years for the 1918 pandemic to sputter out. We didn't learn to live with it, our immune systems learned to fight it off, and it retreated from being an acutely dangerous threat to being merely a chronic one.

The cost was millions of lives, because it was the only option- there were no vaccines or antivirals. But we have both of those now. The steady-state for COVID-19 will hopefully look something like seasonal flu, but it will take time.

If Covid had occurred in 1918, it would likely have had a much higher CFR than H1N1 - no supplemental oxygen available at that time.

Lol the number one indicator of having a severe case of covid19 is being overweight and a diabetic — likely being >60.

Gotta say I think you’re wildly incorrect there. Influenza impacted the young and still does.

The 1889 pandemic may be a closer equivalent.

Influenza didn't kill 5+ million people in two years.

You're off by a factor of 10, it killed 50 million in 1918-1920, 1-4 million in 1957-1958, 1-4 million again in 1968-1969, 700k in 1977, 100-200k in 2009.

That’s also not population adjusted.

Uhhhh it killed somewhere around 17-50 million people. I guess you’re technically correct lmao.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu