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Second Waves Are the Deadliest
Historical mortality data is pretty clear
By the end of August 1918, the Spanish Influenza seemed to have given up. Even though it properly messed up military operations — three-quarters of French troops, half the British forces, and over 900,000 German soldiers got sick — the mortality rates weren’t considered alarming, according to Laura Spinney’s Pale Rider.
Around 75,000 people had died in the U.S. from the virus during the first months of 1918, which was just 12,000 more than the flu mortality figure from the first half of 1915.
Over the next three months, the Spanish Influenza would take most of its toll. Spread by military troops, the virus claimed 292,000 lives in the United States alone — more than a tenfold increase compared to the fall of 1915. India was hit the hardest, with estimated 12.5 to 20 million casualties.
Such behavior isn’t exclusive to the Spanish flu. Swine flu, Influenza’s modern cousin, also seemed to be more problematic with the second wave. According to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the second wave of the Swine flu was “substantially greater,” causing 4.8 times more hospital admissions, 4.6 times more deaths and four times more ICU cases.
