Swine flu spread easily, killed far fewer

Over the past several months, social media users have made comparisons between the spreading coronavirus and past disease outbreaks.

Some widely shared Facebook posts have compared the coronavirus to the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic, pointing out that the swine flu had 56 million more cases in its first year than the coronavirus has had so far.

The posts, which lack any context about the number of deaths from either virus, question the U.S. response to the coronavirus, given the response to the swine flu based on the apparent disparity in the number of cases.

“How many months were schools closed back then? How long did we wear masks?” an Aug. 2 post from the page Awkward Gym Moments says.

“Only 56 million to go until we equal swine flu in 2009 when we did nothing then,” says a July 26 post from the Facebook user David Pike Sr., which had 22,000 shares as of Thursday.

Neither user responded to a USA TODAY request for comment.

A look back at swine flu

In spring 2009, a new strain of the H1N1 virus that became known as “swine flu” began circulating in the United States. On June 11, the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic.

From April 12, 2009, to April 10, 2010, the virus infected more than 60 million people in the U.S., according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC estimates show those infections resulted in about 274,000 hospitalizations and 12,500 deaths, or a fatality rate of 0.02% among cases. The CDC estimates that 151,700 to 575,400 people died from that flu worldwide. The swine flu affected predominately children and young- to middle-aged adults: According to the CDC, 80% of deaths worldwide were in people younger than 65.

While the U.S. government in spring 2009 initially recommended schools shut down temporarily if there were suspected cases, it soon changed its recommendation based on the lower severity.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a video interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association this year that the swine flu was easily transmitted but was not as deadly as some other pandemics.

How do H1N1, COVID-19 compare?

Since the first reported U.S. coronavirus death on Feb. 29, there have been more than 166,000 U.S. deaths – more than 13 times the estimated number of U.S. swine flu deaths in its first year – according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, more than 750,000 people have died of COVID-19, significantly more than the highest swine flu death estimate from the CDC.

The CDC estimates the coronavirus has an infection fatality rate of 0.65%.

Our ruling: Missing context

Comparing numbers of infections lacks important context about the severity of each virus. While the swine flu spread easily, the virus had only a fraction of the fatality rate of COVID-19. A comparison between the two that lacks this context when comparing the nation’s response is incomplete. For that reason, we rate this post as MISSING CONTEXT.