In the midst of the current COVID-19 outbreak there’s been plenty of chatter about historical
pandemics like the Black Plague and the nineteen-eighteen Spanish Flu outbreak, but one outbreak from
recent memory is being compared to COVID-19 more than any other - the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic
of two-thousand nine.
So, COVID-19 versus H1N1 Swine Flu - which is worse?
First of all, it’s worth pointing out that this is an ongoing outbreak, and that the
situation is changing by the minute.
The information in this video is accurate as of March 2020, but this outbreak is far
from over, and as we learn more about COVID-19, things will undoubtedly change - in fact,
they’ll probably change by the time you finish this video!
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at how the current COVID-19
outbreak stacks up against the two-thousand nine H1N1 swine flu pandemic.
It makes sense that we are looking back to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic for clues about
what the current COVID-19 outbreak has in store for us.
The H1N1 swine flu outbreak was the last most recent global pandemic, and it shares many
things in common with COVID-19, including similar symptoms and global spread.
Although looking to the past can be useful, it’s important to remember that no two pandemics
are the same.
While there’s certainly a lot we can learn by looking at the commonalities between the
two outbreaks, it can be dangerous to base too much of our actions in the present on
things that happened in the past without understanding the key differences.
Both the current COVID-19 outbreak and the two-thousand nine H1N1 swine flu pandemic
were caused by viruses.
A virus is a tiny microorganism that reproduces by inserting its genetic materials into host
cells, causing those cells to burst and die or become malignant.
There are many different kinds of viruses, they can mutate and change over time, and
each virus causes different symptoms as it attacks our cells and our body tries to fight
off the infection.
The Swine Flu was an aggressive strain of the flu virus called H1N1 that infects the
cells that line our respiratory tract.
The outbreak was called the Swine Flu because this particular virus had been known to cause
illnesses in pigs, but the two-thousand nine pandemic was the first time this virus was
known to infect humans.
The outbreak started in the U.S. in April two-thousand nine and quickly spread across
the globe.
Less than two weeks after the first confirmed case in California, the World Health Organization
had declared a public health emergency that lasted until August two-thousand ten.
The COVID-19 outbreak emerged in Wuhan, China in late twenty-nineteen before quickly spreading
to other countries.
The COVID-19 disease is caused by a virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
two - SARS-CoV-2.
Like the swine flu, the virus that causes COVID-19 can likely be traced back to animals,
but scientists are still trying to work out exactly how it made the jump to humans.
While the H1N1 and COVID-19 viruses are similar in some ways, they actually belong to different
virus groups.
H1N1 is an influenza virus, but COVID-19 is from the coronavirus family and is more like
an extremely contagious viral pneumonia.
H1N1 viruses have a long history of past outbreaks - more on that in a bit - but COVID-19 is
a ‘novel’ virus, one that has never before been seen in humans, making it tricky to look
to the past for clues about the severity or duration of this outbreak.
The fact that the Swine Flu and COVID-19 viruses are from different virus groups also accounts
for the different symptoms experienced by those who contract the viruses.
There is some overlap - fever, cough and a sore throat are common symptoms of both Swine
Flu and COVID-19 - but there are many key differences.
H1N1 swine flu symptoms resemble typical flu symptoms - fever and chills, body aches, and
fatigue.
We’re still investigating all the symptoms of COVID-19, but a fever and cough seem to
be the most common.
Other symptoms include headache, sore throat, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
Complications from both viruses can include respiratory issues like pneumonia, which can
be serious or even fatal.
A major difference between swine flu and COVID-19 is how long it takes for symptoms to show
up in the first place.
Swine flu symptoms usually start within one to four days of contracting the virus, but
COVID-19 is much sneakier - it could be up to two weeks before symptoms appear, if they
show up at all.
Some people infected with the virus are asymptomatic, which is bad news when it comes to containing
it’s spread.
Viruses are spread through contact with infected people or surfaces.
When a person with a virus coughs or sneezes, they release respiratory droplets that can
be inhaled by someone nearby or end up on nearby surfaces...or hands.
Both H1N1 Swine Flu and COVID-19 can spread through these respiratory droplets, which
can make their way into your mouth, nose or eyes when you touch your face after touching
an infected surface.
Recent evidence suggests that the COVID-19 virus can live on surfaces like cardboard
for twenty-four hours, steel for forty-eight hours, and plastic for seventy-two hours.
Some viruses - like the H1N1 Swine Flu virus - can also be airborne.
When people cough or sneeze or even breath, they emit small particles called aerosols.
These particles may contain the virus, and they can float in air for a while before being
inhaled, allowing the virus to spread through the air.
Thankfully, so far WHO has said there have been no reports of aerosolized transmission
of COVID-19.
Even so, COVID-19 appears to be more contagious than H1N1 Swine Flu.
How do we measure the contagiousness of a virus?
As an infection spreads to new people, it reproduces itself.
The reproduction number, or R-naught value, is a measure of how contagious a disease is.
H1N1 swine flu had an R-naught value of one-point-four-six, meaning each person who contracted the virus
spread it to an average of one-point-four-six other people.
Based on early data, COVID-19 has an R-naught value between two and two-and-a-half, which
is even more unsettling when we know that not everyone with the virus shows symptoms.
So who’s most at risk when it comes to these viruses?
In both cases, as with any viral outbreak, those with underlying health issues are the
most at risk - people with compromised immune systems, like cancer patients, have a hard
time fighting off a new infection and are more prone to experiencing complications if
they are exposed to the virus.
Elderly people can also be at higher risk - is most pandemics, the death rate is heavily
stacked against older people, and this does seem to be the case with COVID-19 so far.
In a typical year, between seventy and ninety percent of all flu-related deaths are over
the age of sixty-five.
One of the things that made the H1N1 swine flu outbreak so unique was the fact that up
to eighty percent of the people who died during the swine flu outbreak were under the age
of sixty five.
Researchers were able to determine that approximately one third of all people over age sixty had
immunity to swine flu thanks to the presence of antibodies in their system.
This was likely because they had been exposed to a similar strain of H1N1 earlier in their
lives - in fact, the infamous Spanish Flu was caused by an H1N1 virus.
Very few people under sixty had these antibodies, hence the much higher than normal death rate
in the under-sixty population.
If these older people hadn’t been immune, the H1N1 swine flu pandemic could have been
much worse.
COVID-19, on the other hand, is a “novel” virus, which means we’ve never seen evidence
of it in people before now.
This also means that no one has immunity against it, since their body hasn’t produced antibodies
against it.
When we talk about COVID-19 vs. H1N1 swine flu, what we’re often really getting at
is “which is deadlier”?
A decade after the outbreak, we have some clear data about the H1N1 Swine Flu.
According to The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, H1N1 Swine Flu infected seven-hundred
million to one-point-four billion people worldwide and killed between one-hundred and fifty-one
thousand and five-hundred and seventy-five thousand people in the first year of the pandemic
- up to zero-point-zero-zero-seven percent of the world’s population.
H1N1 had a case fatality rate of zero-point-zero-two percent.
The Case Fatality Rate is the proportion of people with a specific disease who will die
from that disease over a specific time period.
It’s a measurement that can be used to track the severity of a disease and the effectiveness
of treatments.
With COVID-19, it’s too early to say with any accuracy what the final case fatality
rates will be.
There are estimates based on current data, but those numbers will be skewed, because
we don’t yet know the outcome of all the current cases, and it’s hard to get accurate
case counts in the first place.
As of March twenty-first, twenty-twenty, WHO has reported two-hundred and ninety-two thousand
total cases so far.
Of those cases, there have been twelve-thousand seven-hundred deaths to date, which works
out to a Case Fatality Rate of zero-point-zero-four percent, though experts estimate that the
final case fatality rate for COVID-19 could be anywhere between zero-point-two-five percent
to three percent.
Just to put these numbers into context, the nineteen-eighteen Spanish Flu infected five-hundred
million people, or a third of the world’s population, and killed up to fifty million
at a time when our understanding of viruses and social distancing were pretty limited,
to say the least.
Another huge difference between the H1N1 Swine Flu of two-thousand nine and the current COVID-19
outbreak is that this is the first true pandemic of the social media age, when stories can
spread faster than a virus.
Sure, Facebook and Twitter were around back in oh-nine, but they weren’t anywhere near
as popular as they are now.
But that doesn’t mean people were immune to the kind of panic that we’re currently
experiencing.
Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University in
New York was quoted at the time as saying: “If as many people had swine flu as those
that are covering swine flu then it would be a pandemic to reckon with.”
Early news coverage was non-stop - until the pandemic story was eventually knocked out
of the headlines by a political scandal.
So, COVID-19 versus H1N1 Swine Flu - which is worse?
Well, unfortunately it’s too soon to say for certain - remember, the COVID-19 outbreak
is still ongoing, and although this information is accurate as of March twenty-twenty, new
information is coming in by the hour, so the situation could very well change.
No two pandemics are the same, so when we’re comparing COVID-19 to H1N1 Swine flu, or to
any other pandemic, we should be focusing on understanding how best to respond to these
types of emergencies now and in the future, not on trying to predict the future of this
particular pandemic.
The H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic turned out to be not as bad as originally predicted, but
experts caution against assuming that COVID-19 will be the same.
H1N1’s ability to spread might have been limited because the older population was largely
immune to the virus.
Young people shouldn’t assume they’re safe - although older people seem to be at
highest risk from COVID-19, there’s plenty of evidence of severe and even fatal cases
in young, otherwise healthy individuals.
At this point, COVID-19 doesn’t appear to be airborne like Swine Flu was, but it is
more contagious than H1N1 and it can take longer for symptoms to show up.
As far as how bad things might get, a lot will depend on how we as a global society
respond to this threat.
You can do your part to help stop the spread of COVID-19 by covering your mouth when you
cough or sneeze, washing your hands, disinfecting surfaces, and maintaining social distancing
of at least two metres, or six feet.
If you’ve been travelling, or especially if you’re feeling sick, well, it should
go without saying that you should not be running to the grocery store, let alone going to work
or visiting grandma at the nursing home.
Stay at home, limit your contact with others, and contact your doctor or local health authority
right away.
Even if you don’t feel sick or aren’t worried about your own health, staying at
home as much as possible is the best way to stop this virus from spreading.
Remember - you could be contagious even if you don’t have any symptoms.
Stay at home, not just for your own sake, but for everyone.
It’s how we will beat this virus!
While you’re stuck inside, we’ve got you covered.
If you found this video informative, you’ll want to check out our other video, called
“The Most Effective Way to Kill a Virus”, or perhaps you’ll like this other video
instead.
As always, thanks for watching, and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe!
See you next time!