The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.3 Why COVID-19 isn't The Spanish Flu. Here is Why and What that Means for You

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Friday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and for today's Friday's show We're gonna do something a little bit different But before we do I want to quickly thank these sponsors of our show during these uncertain times as well as specifically the sponsor Of today's show let's get chat and let's get checked is confidential at-home health testing with fast online results that are reviewed by a team Of physicians and they've also announced the upcoming launch of their timely COVID-19 test, but we're gonna touch on that later So I'm a big believer and one of the best ways to understand the current situation, the gravity of it, and what could happen in the future, is to take a look back.

So that's why today we're gonna look at the history of major outbreaks in the United States, because over the last century, we've seen over a handful of them. From the Spanish flu to the Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, and now COVID-19, which, by the way, those last three fall into the coronavirus family.

All right, so this isn't our first outbreak, and unfortunately it will not be our last. Outbreaks are actually pretty constant. We've seen a lot of them, but not every outbreak reaches pandemic levels like COVID-19 has. When we say pandemic, it refers to an illness that has spread over several countries or continents,

usually affecting a large geographic area and tons of people. And so to start things off, a little over 100 years ago, we saw the first pandemic of the 20th century, the Spanish flu. And recently we've seen a lot of people comparing COVID-19 to start things off, a little over 100 years ago, we saw the first pandemic of the 20th century, the Spanish flu. And recently we've seen a lot of people comparing COVID-19 to the Spanish flu, but it is important to note there are major differences.

Now, one of the big ones is that the Spanish flu involves the H1N1 influenza virus, whereas COVID-19 is a strain of the coronavirus, meaning that it is not the flu. Also, just a quick note here, COVID-19 is the name of this specific disease, and the name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2. But to keep it simple, we're sticking to COVID in all cases

because that's what everyone knows it as. That said, Spanish flu. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in Fort Riley, Kansas in the spring of 1918. And by late summer, soldiers returning home from Europe were bringing the virus into major cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

As far as the origin of this virus, it's largely debated. You know, this ranging from a British base in France to Fort Riley itself. Actually, more recent theories suggest it originated in Northern China and made its way into Europe in late 1917 when the war-torn governments hired them to free up troops. Cases were reported not only in China and the United States,

but also France and Great Britain. And like with COVID-19, city and health officials in America were left having to decide whether to tell people to wear masks, stay home, close schools, and ban public gatherings. And that's because efforts to contain on a national level were limited, and so responsibility was passed to states and cities.

Additionally, there were no vaccines or antibiotics to treat this virus. And so instead, they were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions like isolation, quarantine, exercising good personal hygiene, using disinfectants, and limiting public gatherings. Right, and so all of that made containment hard. Now in the beginning, the public was actually told

that soldiers were only suffering from a severe case of the flu and that they themselves were not at risk. And it wasn't just like randoms saying this, one of the people that assured the public of this was Philadelphia's own health director. But as civilian cases began to be reported in September, physicians began to worry that this was actually much bigger than they were being told.

But despite this concern, major events were not canceled. And in fact, one of the biggest events to take place that month was the Liberty Loan Parade, which, despite warnings from infectious disease experts, was not canceled. Reportedly, several hundred thousand people attended the parade that day, and within 72 hours, every single hospital in Philadelphia was fully occupied. By the end of the week, over 2,600 people were pronounced dead. But thankfully, other cities took these warnings seriously. In San Francisco, for example,

they made it a legal requirement to wear masks, and anyone caught in public without one was actually arrested and fined $5, which is like $100 today. Even though the effectiveness of these masks can be questioned, the overall response was pretty well organized. They closed entertainment venues, public schools,

banned social gatherings. They also quarantined Navy bases very early on, before the virus even made its way into the city. Overall, San Francisco saw low rates of infection. We also saw the city of St. Louis take a similar approach. There they also had measures like when a person would get sick, volunteer nurses were instructed to treat the sick at home.

And so in places like this, we saw a flattening of the curve, which is probably a phrase at this point that you are tired of hearing, but is incredibly important. Now, in contrast to St. Louis, officials in Philadelphia did not ban public gatherings until more than two weeks

after the first infections were reported. And according to an analysis of Spanish flu death records, the peak mortality rate in St. Louis, officials in Philadelphia did not ban public gatherings until more than two weeks after the first infections were reported. And according to an analysis of Spanish flu death records, the peak mortality rate in St. Louis was only an eighth of Philadelphia's death rate at its worst. And in total, according to the CDC, over 500 million people contracted the disease worldwide, which at the time was roughly a third

of the global population. And by December 1920, it's estimated that at least 50 million deaths occurred worldwide, of which 675,000 were in the United States. Now after the Spanish flu pandemic, influenza went back to its usual seasonal state. And it wasn't until 1957 that we saw another pandemic on a massive scale.

It came to be known as the Asian flu and was a new and aggressive strain established as an H2N2 virus. This first reported in Singapore in February of 1957, then Hong Kong in April, and by June it had made its way to the United States. At first it hit military bases, vessels, and installations, but eventually people at conferences and summer camps

began showing signs of the illness. The government, once again, did not know how to quickly respond to the outbreaks and how seriously they should be taken, but it's been reported that the CDC already had asked six vaccine manufacturers to come up with a vaccine fast, which, notably, wasn't something that was even possible

back in 1918 because we didn't even know viruses existed. Now when schools opened as planned in July, the virus began to spread very quickly. According to the Seattle Times, a report published in 1959 estimated that over 60% of students had clinical illnesses during the fall. And what we ended up seeing is that eventually the vaccine was introduced and by September,

5.4 million doses had been released. By early November, about 40 million doses had been released. So by Thanksgiving, life was slowly coming back to normal. Now overall, the pandemic spread to more than 20 countries in less than four months and caused almost 60,000 excess deaths in the United States. With the worldwide number of deaths being estimated to be two million.

Then we see a decade after the 1957 pandemic, the H3N2 virus, also known as the Hong Kong flu. It began to spread initially throughout Asia and within two weeks of its emergence, some 500,000 cases had been reported. And considering the year here, to no one's surprise, it also made its way to the west coast of the United States by way of the American troops returning home

from the war in Vietnam. By the end of December, the virus had gone global. Cases were being reported in India, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, the Caribbean, France, Italy, all over. While this particular strain had a relatively low mortality rate, it was highly contagious. The most susceptible being infants

and those over the age of 65. And actually, even other mammals seem to be at risk with this. There's actually a story titled, "'Even Whales Catch HK Flu' published in the Post on May 1st, 1969. They reported that three whales at SeaWorld had the virus and had to be dosed with antibiotic pills

concealed in mackerel." Although, no, treating them with antibiotics may not have been the best move considering you need antiviral medication to treat a viral disease like influenza. But, back to the humans, symptoms here lasted anywhere from four to five days, and in some cases up to two weeks. People reported upper respiratory symptoms,

chills, fever, muscle pain, and weakness. Similar to what we're seeing now, clinics were packed, people who thought they might have it were told to shelter at home and stay in bed until their symptoms improved. Now as with most influenza cases, the pandemic happened in two waves, and in most places the second wave

caused the greater number of deaths. And here, according to the CDC, it's estimated that one million deaths occurred worldwide, with about 100,000 coming from the United States. We then fast forward to April 15th, 2009, and two unrelated children from Southern California test positive for flu infections caused by viruses that normally sicken pigs.

Now as far as where this virus originated from, that is still debated, but the main thing here was that for the first time in four decades, a new flu virus had emerged and triggered a global pandemic. Swine flu virus, or H1N1, was another type A influenza virus, just like the Hong Kong flu virus. And within a week of the first diagnosis, the CDC had begun working on a vaccine.

Then on April 26th, the National Public Health Emergency was declared. At this point, students among various schools in the United States began reporting symptoms and in response, we saw major school closures and the implementation of community level social distancing measures. On April 28th, less than two weeks after identification

of the new pandemic virus, a test developed by the CDC was cleared for use by the FDA under an emergency use authorization. Soon after, test kits were sent out domestically and internationally. But despite these efforts, the virus continued to spread and on June 11th, WHO declared that this is a global pandemic.

The number of countries reporting cases nearly doubled from mid June to early July. In the United States, cases peaked in May and June and declined during July and early August. During this time, new antiviral drugs were rolled out and by mid September, the FDA announced approval of four vaccines. And ultimately, with the swine flu,

the CDC estimates that from April 2009 to April 2010, there were 60.8 million cases, over a quarter of a million hospitalizations, and a total of 12,469 deaths in the US. And it's widely believed that the lower death rates here can be attributed to a multifaceted and long-term response to this pandemic set out by the government. An interesting thing, even though the pandemic

was declared to be over by August 2010, that specific strain that caused the swine flu actually still circulates as a seasonal flu to date. Now, with all of that said, we move into coronavirus territory, right? SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. All three of these illnesses are caused by a coronavirus. SARS, which stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome, first appeared in China in November of 2002. It ended up spreading to 26 countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia before being contained. And by 2003, the virus has spread

to over 8,000 people worldwide and killed almost 800. And while the death toll here is not very high, the response was relatively slow and so was the overall reporting of the illness. But one of the main standouts with this situation is doctors had never before seen a viral illness like this. In fact, those in Guangdong province of China thought the SARS cases they were seeing might be atypical pneumonia. Hell, the World Health Organization didn't even recognize the first case until February of 2003 when the virus made its way to Hong Kong. At that time, doctors began isolating and quarantining people until the virus passed out of their system, and after that year, the only SARS cases came from isolated laboratory breakouts

where scientists were studying the SARS coronavirus that causes the illness. And here, China and Hong Kong suffered the most during the SARS outbreak. In China, there were 5,327 cases and 349 deaths, and in Hong Kong, there were 1,755 cases and 299 deaths. And as far as the United States, there were actually only 27 cases which resulted in zero deaths. Since 2004, there haven't been any known cases reported anywhere in the world.

Then, we have MERS, which stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Related Coronavirus. It first appeared in Jordan in the spring of 2012, then in Saudi Arabia later that year. Symptoms included fever, cough, and shortness of breath. About three or four out of every ten patients reported with MERS have died. Now the thing is, the illness is actually still around, with the most recent case being reported on February 18th of this year. and shortness of breath. About three or four out of every 10 patients reported with MERS have died. Now the thing is, the illness is actually still around with the most recent case being reported on February 18th of this year.

There is currently no vaccine or specific treatment available, but some are in development. And since 2012, there actually been a total of 850 deaths worldwide. Now compared to MERS and SARS, COVID-19 is extremely contagious and easily spread, already doing a significant amount of damage with over 50,000 deaths as of April 2nd.

And even though the COVID-19 pandemic is in its early stages making it pretty impossible to predict its future impact, it is developing rather quickly. Now, if you've been watching the PDS, my coverage of the pandemic, you are most likely aware of the stats. Based on the numbers of deaths and confirmed cases related to previous illnesses,

we can see that the preparedness for pandemics has improved on a global level. We saw that with the containment of SARS, the swine flu, then MERS, but death tolls from COVID-19 have already exceeded those of SARS and MERS. Just to highlight that point, when we were doing initial research

to see if we even wanted to do this video, right? March 17th, at that time, there were 8,000 deaths worldwide. As of filming this video, there are now around 240,000 cases attributed to COVID-19 in the United States, meaning that we've passed Italy and China and now lead the world in the number of cases. Now among others, we've seen President Trump repeatedly compare the response to COVID-19 with the H1N1 swine flu outbreak

in 2009, and while the number of confirmed cases increased at very similar rates over the first 16 days, the CDC had confirmed 4,226 COVID-19 cases in that span, while in 2009, the CDC had tallied 3,352 H1N1 cases. The death rate for COVID-19 has also far outpaced H1N1 over the same span. 16 days after the first swine flu death, there were only three H1N1 deaths reported to the CDC

in comparison to the 75 COVID-19 related deaths. But also, like I noted earlier, H1N1 didn't go away. The swine flu is now part of the seasonal flu and is covered by the flu vaccine. COVID-19, on the other hand, is completely new and has no vaccine, so the efforts we make to contain it and keep it from spreading are as important as ever right now.

Right, and I really can't stress that enough. In addition to you just feeling like you learned something, we can compare and contrast. Hitting that point of as many of us as possible need to do what we can now to lessen the damage, that's the point of this video. And I think with a lot of stories, a lot of people look at them and they go,

oh, that's something that happened to someone else. Whether it be politicians that minimize the potential getting it, The spring breakers saying, hey, if I get Corona, I get Corona. If I get Corona, I get Corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying. And then you later see reports

of spring breakers getting Corona. Well, I understand that some people might get some dark joy when they see that. It's like, oh, a person that didn't take it serious, now they're taking it serious. I, on the other hand, do not get joy out of that. It's not because, oh, I'm such a good person. The feeling that I get is just more and more frustration

as I see this conga line of people saying, hey, learn from my mistake, growing by the day. And so I am happy to see recently President Trump extending federal social distancing guidelines. Governor is also stepping in at the state level, declaring state at home policies. Also as far as potential relief, things like on Sunday, March 29th,

we saw the FDA issue an emergency use authorization for a pair of drugs historically used to treat malaria. Those being what we've talked about on the show recently, hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate. Specifically, they're allowing New York State to test these drugs on certain patients, considering they were at almost 60,000 cases and 1,000 deaths as of March 30th.

And we're in a situation as of March 31st where the White House is predicting between 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the United States. But ultimately, that's where this video ends. Some history, the ability to compare and contrast in a situation that is concerning and still developing. And if there is a last note that I can hit on today, we will get through this.

Yeah, that's where I'm gonna end today's show for the three that made it to the end of the video. Of course, the question I wanna pass off to you, what are your thoughts around what we're seeing right now? What are you going through right now? I know that I ask that question about once a week, but life is changing for so many people at a rapid rate right now, so I know there's new stories.

That said, also, finally, once again, a big thank you to Let's Get Checked. As I mentioned at the top of this video, Let's Get Checked is launching a test for COVID-19 to assist frontline healthcare workers, followed by an at-home test for the public, which is huge. But that's not all. Let's Get Checked offers a wide array of health checks

for general wellness and self-care, including at-home tests for STDs, fertility, cholesterol, testosterone, and even colon cancer detection. I mean, did you know that 51% of people don't get tests for STIs for fear of judgment from their doctors? I mean, this doctor avoidance inevitably leads to spreading infections to others, contributing to the over one million STIs

that are transmitted each year. And so that's where Let's Get Checked comes in. The test is discreetly delivered to your door. Just activate the test, collect your sample, and ship it back with the provided prepaid label. A physician reviews it and reaches out with your anonymous results and a prescription if necessary. And Let's Get Chex tests for COVID-19 will be in two parts,

with initial results provided within 15 minutes and lab test confirmations to follow. And so for more information on this rollout and more, go to trylgc.com slash defranco and use code defranco for 20% off your entire purchase. Yeah, to hit the outro spiel, if you liked this video, of course, hit us with a like, it helps out.

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my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you next time. I hope you liked the video. Subscribe if you like it.