19 Facts About The Flu That Are Interesting And Terrifying At The Same Time | eBaum's World

19 Facts About The Flu That Are Interesting And Terrifying At The Same Time

The flu is a constantly evolving virus and we have no cure for it, which makes it extra frightening.

By Nathan Johnson

Published 8 years ago in Wow

The flu is a constantly evolving virus and we have no cure for it, which makes it extra frightening.

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1
Flu pandemics are more likely to affect younger, healthy people because their immune systems will overreact to damage going on in the body.

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2
Pigs are apparently the perfect breeding grounds for new strains of the flu because they can infect three different species: pigs, birds, and humans.

3
The symptoms of the swine flu include fever, coughing, a sore throat, a runny nose, body aches, headaches, chills, nausea, and fatigue. This makes it incredibly hard to distinguish from a regular case of the flu.
4
Most flu-related deaths are because of bacterial pneumonia, a complication of influenza.

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5
Air travel has dramatically increased the rate at which flu cases can be spread.
6
Face masks are not believed to be of much help in stopping the spread of the flu. They do not form a tight seal around the face and block only large droplets, not small viruses, from coming into contact with the wearer’s mouth and nose.
7
Viruses are between 20 and 100 times smaller than bacteria and can only be seen through a microscope.

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8
The Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968-1969 killed over 1 million people.
9
Viruses mutate more in one day than humans have in millions of years.
10
At the University of Michigan, students could be suspended for not wearing masks during the Spanish Flu.

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11
Lost wages and reduced productivity costs America billions of dollars every year due to cases of the flu.
12
The same outbreak killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS did in 24 years.
13
The Spanish Flu killed more Americans in one year than those who died in battle during WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

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14
The mortality rate of SARS was 9.6%, killing 744 out of the 8,000 known cases.
15
Swine flu has been relatively tame, but the last few flu pandemics all started off mild before they became incredibly lethal.
16
Scientists believe that flu pandemics occur two or three times each century.

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17
During the Spanish Flu, Arizona passed a law that made it illegal for people to shake hands.
18
It is estimated that between 3-5 million people get serious cases of the flu every year, and 250,000-500,000 people die from it.
19
Annually, the flu affects about 20% of Americans.

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