wi FLU PANDEMIC BEFORE ww1

Much less deadly. No mass troop movements, better nutrition, less secrecy, more international cooperation, far fewer large camps at cetera. Less (and slower) international travel would reduce the spread.
 
Much less deadly. No mass troop movements, better nutrition, less secrecy, more international cooperation, far fewer large camps at cetera. Less (and slower) international travel would reduce the spread.

It could have still been uncommonly nasty, because of how it affected young adults more than old or young, but it would have been a lot more like the 1957 Asian flu, but without the benefit of antibiotics. So instead of killing 2-4 million as the Asian Flu did, it might kill 5-8 million on the top end.
 
It is true the WW1 served as an incubation and dissemination system for the Spanish flu which accelerated its spread, but it was sufficiently contageous to spread World-wide. In fact, it would means less infected in wave 1 and more in wave 2 and 3 which were more deadly.
 
Between the mass movement of troops and some of the mass public meetings in the USA this meant more opportunities for spread. The poor condition that soldiers lived in, malnutrition, and the situation of the refugees all contributed. IMHO it will spread worldwide but not as extensively, fewer infected. Assuming the same virulence, probably some decrease in case mortality, and due to that and fewer folks infected, fewer deaths.

The most "popular" theory for this was it started in the USA (Kansas specifically) as a an ordinary flu, went to Europe where some further mutation occurred making it the killer it was. It was called "Spanish" because Spain, as a neutral, did not have the sorts of censorship the warfighters had, so the extent and severity was suppressed by both sides, but when it crossed in to Spain details were made freely available. Hence "Spanish Flu".
 
Between the mass movement of troops and some of the mass public meetings in the USA this meant more opportunities for spread. The poor condition that soldiers lived in, malnutrition, and the situation of the refugees all contributed. IMHO it will spread worldwide but not as extensively, fewer infected. Assuming the same virulence, probably some decrease in case mortality, and due to that and fewer folks infected, fewer deaths.

The most "popular" theory for this was it started in the USA (Kansas specifically) as a an ordinary flu, went to Europe where some further mutation occurred making it the killer it was. It was called "Spanish" because Spain, as a neutral, did not have the sorts of censorship the warfighters had, so the extent and severity was suppressed by both sides, but when it crossed in to Spain details were made freely available. Hence "Spanish Flu".
The press story is true,and it is also true that troop concentrations mattered a lot. In particular the coinfections mattered to a degree that arriving to the front in 1914 or 1918 made little difference in survival. The influenza and coinfections made up for the battle related mortality and be then the class of 1914 had experienced most of the coinfections.
This was However only a small part of the global influenza mortality. The impactvia nutrition and so forth are hard to estimate and most significant in a small part of the world. Furthermore, that influenza were worst for healthy people.It causes its mortality via a cytokine storm - immune overreaction.
PS. Be ware of data sampling bias. Maybe the first descriptions are from Kansas because the Chinese farmers were illiterate or had their letters burenes during the cultural revolution. In Scientific circles there are theories, but nothing is known a out its location.
What is know is that it was not ordinary. A mutated avian flu.
When the H5N1 was adapted to spread in ferrets it preserved its lethality and gained infectiousness.
 
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It's now thought that the virus more likely spread from Aldershot and Etaples Army Camps and had been lurking around since the late 1880s. By Dec 1916, dozens of British soldiers had fallen ill with the mortality rate of 40%. They displayed what would later became known as a key diagnostic symptom of the killer flu: their faces were tinged a peculiar lavender colour. This condition, known as heliotrope cyanosis, was observed extensively in the ensuing 1918 outbreak. The overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of the camps, with most soldiers housed in tents or temporary wooden barracks, were ideal for the spreading of a respiratory virus.

The unprecedented circumstances of the war on the Western Front, a landscape contaminated with respiratory irritants such as chlorine and phosgene gas, characterised by unsanitary living conditions, stress, overcrowding, and the partial starvation of civilians – provided the perfect opportunity for rapid transmission of influenza between young servicemen and women. The coming and going of people from all over the world provided the opportunity for the disease to spread beyond the base camps and hospitals of the troops.
 
. . . The most "popular" theory for this was it started in the USA (Kansas specifically) as a an ordinary flu, went to Europe where some further mutation occurred making it the killer it was. It was called "Spanish" because Spain, as a neutral, did not have the sorts of censorship the warfighters had, . . .

just to add on a little about virus reproduction, and flu being an RNA virus:

The Great Influenza, John Barry, 2004, 2005, pages 105-106.

https://books.google.com/books?id=B...new viruses that burst out of a cell”&f=false

“The influenza virus mutates so fast that 99 percent of the 100,000 to 1 million new viruses that burst out of a cell in the reproduction process are too defective to infect another cell and reproduce again. But that still leaves between 1,000 and 10,000 viruses that can infect another cell.”
If one variant of flu makes a person really sick so much that they stay in their home trying to recuperate and recover, and another variant makes a person moderately sick so that they’re out trying to do their normal activities as part of the walking wounded, well, which one is going to spread more readily?

In this way, most viruses tend to become more mild over time. Of course, there are abundant exceptions.

* please remember, once a virus gets rolling, it reproduces by hijacking a cell’s machinery. Of course, the body has its defenses so it’s a real battle, with at first the virus having the upper hand and then later the body having the upper hand.
 
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Agreed, the abysmal living conditions in the trenches insure the spread of ANY disease as the troop's are so worn out their immune systems are badly compromised. And training camps are full of new men who are now jammed together constantly. Many have not been inoculated, thus again spreading any disease quickly.

And the flu does mutate rapidly, sometimes to the point where that year's vaccine does little or nothing to stop it as it's already mutated again by that point...
 
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