Tragic, no doubt. But is it historically correct and comparatively of value?
Soldiers sick with the Spanish Flu at Ft. Riley, Kansas during World War One. Ft. Riley is where the Spanish Flu first demonstrably broke out.
Yesterday, we posted this item:
500,000. Governor Gordon Orders Flags Be Flown at Half-Staff Statewide Through February 26 in Memory of Americans lost to COVID-19
Governor Gordon Orders Flags Be Flown at Half-Staff Statewide Through February 26
in Memory of Americans lost to COVID-19
CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Governor Mark Gordon, pursuant to President Joe Biden's Proclamation remembering the 500,000 Americans lost to COVID-19, has ordered both the U.S. and State of Wyoming flags be flown at half-staff statewide until sunset February 26.
The Presidential Proclamation follows:
REMEMBERING THE 500,000 AMERICANS LOST TO COVID-19
- - - - - - -BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAA PROCLAMATIONAs of this week during the dark winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 500,000 Americans have now died from the virus. That is more Americans who have died in a single year of this pandemic than in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. On this solemn occasion, we reflect on their loss and on their loved ones left behind. We, as a Nation, must remember them so we can begin to heal, to unite, and find purpose as one Nation to defeat this pandemic.In their memory, the First Lady and I will be joined by the Vice President and the Second Gentleman for a moment of silence at the White House this evening. I ask all Americans to join us as we remember the more than 500,000 of our fellow Americans lost to COVID19 and to observe a moment of silence at sunset. I also hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset February 26, 2021. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-second day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America thetwo hundred and forty-fifth.JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.--END--
First of all, let us note that this is a grim and tragic marker. 500,000 lives cut short, and we're not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.
But breaking this down, what does it mean, and is it actually accurate?
First, let me note that what I did was to link in the state's endorsement of President Biden's proclamation. So that we can be sure we're reading it correctly, let's first link in the actual proclamation:
A Proclamation on Remembering the 500,000 Americans Lost to COVID-19As of this week during the dark winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 500,000 Americans have now died from the virus. That is more Americans who have died in a single year of this pandemic than in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. On this solemn occasion, we reflect on their loss and on their loved ones left behind. We, as a Nation, must remember them so we can begin to heal, to unite, and find purpose as one Nation to defeat this pandemic.In their memory, the First Lady and I will be joined by the Vice President and the Second Gentleman for a moment of silence at the White House this evening. I ask all Americans to join us as we remember the more than 500,000 of our fellow Americans lost to COVID-19 and to observe a moment of silence at sunset. I also hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset February 26, 2021. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-second day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
And, as can be seen, the linked in text was in fact correctly quoted by the Governor. I know that linking that in is pedantic, but we want to be quoting correctly.
And I'm not faulting Governor Gordon or President Biden for the half mast order. Indeed, I think it may be a useful reminder to the living that this isn't over yet and precautions are still needed. We certainly don't want to hit the 1,000,000 mark.
None the less, can deaths due to disease really be compared to combat deaths?
Let's start with this, is it correct that the 500,000 tragic deaths amount to "more Americans who have died . . than in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined"?
116,516 Americans are officially listed as having died in World War I.
405,399 Americans officially lost their lives due to World War Two, although some figures will add in another 2,000.
58,209 Americans were lost in the Vietnam War.
You don't need the aid of a calculator to realize that President Biden is wrong. 500,000 Americans is a lot of lost lives, and it is tragic, but the combined totals of the three wars noted exceed 500,000. Perhaps not grossly, but they do exceed them. That's 580,124 lives lost in combat in the three wars noted.*
Or do they?
President Biden here correctly mourns and laments those who have died due to SARS-CoV-2 during this pandemic, but those are lives lost to a viral agent. I.e., something loose in nature. Lives lost in war are those lost due to the direct killing action of other men, in one fashion or another. Now, I don't want to get into the "yeah, but if so and so had done something earlier. . . " type argument here, which just goes down a rat hole and looses point of this. The point is, that death by infectious disease is inherently incomparable to death due to war.
Indeed, in human experience, death due to lethal pandemic often grossly exceeds death due to war, even if it occurs in the same time frame.
For example, 116,516 Americans died due to combat during World War One. 675,000 Americans died during the same time period due to the Spanish Flu.
Now, that's a useful statistic. The Spanish Flu Epidemic and the Coronavirus Pandemic are in fact directly comparable as they're both viral pandemics, save for perhaps the argument that the Spanish Flu Pandemic was made worse by World War One, and perhaps caused by World War One. The first argument is undoubtedly correct.
Indeed, for that reason, although we won't develop it here, you could argue that the 116,516 lives lost due to the Great War need to be added to the 675,000 lost due to the Spanish Flu to get a full scale of lives lost due to the global disaster that was the Great War. And that argument would in fact make a lot of sense. We have a ways to go, thankfully, before we reach that mark, although we may very well reach it. That figure is over 719,000 lives lost.
Be that as it may, we also have to keep in mind that the American population was 92,000,000 in the 1910s. Lets' say it was 100,000,000, even though we were not there yet.
Looked at that way, the 675,000 would be the equivalent of about 2,000,000 deaths today. For that matter, the World War One combat deaths, which I didn't add into that, would be equivalent to over 300,000 now.
We're not anywhere close to 2,000,000 deaths, thankfully, and hopefully we will have this in check before we are.
Going back more than a century starts becoming really problematic in such analysis, although it is tempting to do so. Indeed, it can be argued that even going back a century is not a valid comparison as it was before modern medicine to a significant degree. There were no effective antibiotics at the time, for example, and while antibiotics do absolutely nothing in regard to a virus, it can help keep a viral infection from developing into something else which is lethal. For example, we just read the other day of the death of George Gipp, who was infected by strep throat that rapidly killed him. Today, that wouldn't occur. And indeed, there were no effective anti virals either. No wonder the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu was such a killer.
Indeed, we just passed the 75th anniversary of the discovery of penicillin, the great anti biotic.
Still, we can recognize the 1918-19 Flu as there are those still among us, small in number though they are, who are still with us. Many families retain some memories of the flu (ours does) and its impact. And our current society is a direct evolution of that one, even though much has changed. And of course our governments were highly developed at the time, particularly given that the 1918-19 Flu occurred during a time of war, and therefore mass societal mobilization.
For this reason, going back further, is problematic. For example, what became the United States lost 6,800 men to death by combat during the American Revolution. 17,000 Americans died of disease, however, although its significant that the majority of them were prisoners of war at the time. The population, however, was a shade under 3,000,000 (and growing incredibly rapidly) which would mean that the equivalent loss, in modern terms, would have been about 680,000 combat deaths and 1,700,000 deaths due to disease in contemporary terms, or about the same disease loss, oddly enough, as the Spanish Flu had in the Great War period in the United States. But as noted, these figures would be of questionable utility.
So, what does all this tell us?
500,000 deaths is a terrible tragedy, but the frequent comparison to war, while inevitable, really isn't historically or statically valuable except as a loose measuring stick. What that probably tells us, more than anything else, is that as a species we're geared toward understanding loses due to war, so we use those figures as its easy for us to do it, even though that doesn't really tell us anything. We are, that is, psychologically geared toward thinking about fighting an invading enemy. We are apparently less psychologically geared towards thinking about fighting an invading virus.
Indeed, the oppose may in fact be true. We've always lived with killer diseases, but we haven't always really understood them very well, and overall the evidence suggest we really still don't quite, on a day to day personal basis. During the 1918-19 pandemic we really didn't get a handle on it. When inoculations first were introduced some societies around the globe believed all sorts of fanciful scary tales about it. Some religions eschew them today for reasons that have very little to do with what is found in any faith. Folk medicines remain just as popular as ever, and included in that are a collection of myths about vaccinations in general and this one in particular. We remain pretty willing to line up for uniforms when wars come, but much less so to the wearing of uniform masks in times of pandemic.
Footnotes.
*It's interesting how the Korean War, which had a loss of life comparable to Vietnam's, is skipped, as usual, even though the lives lost in that war occurred in a much shorter period of time.
