- What's up you beautiful bastards,
hope you're having a fantastic Friday.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show
and for today's Friday show we're gonna do something
a little bit different.
But before we do, I wanna quickly thank the sponsors
of our show during these uncertain times
as well as specifically the sponsor
of today's show Let's Get Checked.
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 in 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 have seen
over a handful of them, from the Spanish Flu
to the Asian Flu to 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 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.
So to start things off, a little over 100 years ago,
we saw the first pandemic of the 20th century,
the Spanish Flu.
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.
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 is ranging from a British base
in France to Fort Riley itself.
Actually, a more recent theory suggests 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 responsibilities 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.
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 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 2600 people were pronounced dead.
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 five dollars,
which is like a hundred dollars 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 it's 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 was only
an eighth of Philadelphia's death rate at it's worst.
And in total, according to the CDC,
over five hundred 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 it was a new and aggressive strain
established as the H2N2 virus.
It was first reported in Singapore in
February 1957, then Hong Kong in April
and by June it had made it's 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.
What we ended up seeing is that eventually
the vaccine was introduced and by September,
5.4 million doses had been released.
And by early November,
about 40 million doses had been released.
So by Thanksgiving, life was slowly coming back to normal.
Overall the pandemic spread to more than 20 countries
in less than four months and caused
almost 60 thousand excess deaths in the United States.
But the worldwide number
of deaths being estimated to be 2 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 make 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,
with the most susceptible being infants
and those over the age of 65.
And actually, even other mammals seemed
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 Sea World had
the virus and had to be dosed
with antibiotic pills concealed in mackerel.
Although, and no, treating them
with antibiotics may not have been
the best move considering you need anti-viral 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.
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 15, 2009,
and two unrelated children
from Southern California test positive
for flu infections caused by viruses
that normally sicken pigs.
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.
On April 26th
a 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 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 was 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 anti-viral 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.
The 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,
and ended up spreading to 26 countries in North America,
South America, Europe and Asia before being contained.
And by 2003, the virus had 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.
And in fact those in Guangdong Province in China
thought the SARS cases they were seeing might
be atypical pneumonia.
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 studying the SARS Coronavirus,
the virus that causes the illness.
And here, China and Hong Kong suffered the most
during the SARS outbreak.
In China, there were 5327 cases and 349 deaths.
And in Hong Kong, there were 1755 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 System 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 10 patients reported
with MERS have died.
The thing is the illness is actually still around
with the most recent case being reported
around February 18th of this year.
There's currently no vaccine
or specific treatment available but some are in development.
And since 2012 there've actually
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 it's future impact,
it is developing rather quickly.
If you've been watching the PDS amid 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, 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 compared the response
to COVID-19 with the H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak in 2009.
And while the number of confirmed cases increased
at a very similar rates over the first 16 days,
the CDC confirmed 4226 COVID-19 cases in that span,
while in 2009 the CDC had tallied 3352 H1N1 cases.
The death rate for COVID-19 has
also far outpaced H1N1 over the same span.
Sixteen 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,
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.
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.
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 the politicians that minimized
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.
And while I understand that some people might get
some dark joy when they see that,
it's like, "Aw, 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
and its not because, "Aw, I'm such a good person!"
the feeling that I get is 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.
Governors also stepping at the state level,
declaring stay 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.
And specifically they're allowing New York state
to test these drugs on certain patients,
considering they were at almost 60,000 cases
and 1000 deaths as of March 30th.
And we're in a situation as of March 31st
with the White House's predicting 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,
and the 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 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, oh so 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 tests,
testosterone, even colon cancer detection.
Did you know 51% of people don't get tested
for STIs for fear of judgment from their doctors?
I mean this doctor avoidance inevitability leads
to spreading infections to others,
contributing to the over 1 million STIs
that are transmitted each year.
So that's where Let's Get Checked comes in.
The test is discretely 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 Checked's test 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/DeFranco and use code DeFranco
for 20% off your entire purchase.
Yeah, to hit the outro schpiel, if you liked this video,
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But with that said, of course,
as always my name's Philip DeFranco you've
just been Phil-ed in, I love yo faces
and I'll se you next time.
- I hope you liked the video, subscribe if you like it.