This was a very bad Good Friday in terms of the day's toll in increasing U.S. deaths and infections from COVID-19.  And though this day on the liturgical calendar is the one day persons of faith set aside to contemplate suffering, I appreciated the day's contribution by Barry Ritholtz and his two cents on putting this whole thing in perspective by comparing this crisis to every major pandemic the world has known since ancient Rome.  If the estimate proves accurate, this timeline demonstrates that our predicament will likely be more benign than most of the others.  Perhaps we can use this knowledge to insert more joy into the Easter weekend. 


4-10-20 Timeline of History’s Deadliest Pandemics - The Big Picture

Timeline of History’s Deadliest Pandemics

April 10, 2020 11:47am by Barry Ritholtz

History’s deadliest pandemics, from ancient Rome to modern America

Source: Washington Post

What an astonishing chart:

The graphic above is surprisingly encouraging and optimistic. It shows the accumulated total mortality of pandemics from Roman times to today. Centuries before coronavirus, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and other contagions killed hundreds of millions around the world.

Pandemics through history have become far less deadly as we learned the basics of sanitation in a permanent residential society; Modern medicine and scientific advancements have developed treatments, vaccines and cures.

If we assume the mortality count of Covid-19 falls somewhere between the 200,000 lost from Swine flu of 2009 and the million lost in the Hong Kong flu 1968-1970, this would among the worst pandemics of the post-1970 modern era.

Check out the full history of pandemics at the Washington Post.