News and updates on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.| New Atlas
Comparing data from two vastly different pandemics, with more than a century separating them, is perhaps an impossible task. But, a new analysis published in the journal JAMA Network Open, is suggesting a novel metric for comparing the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic to our current pandemic, and the…| New Atlas
Background From 1918 to 1920, the largest influenza A virus (IAV) pandemic known to date spread globally causing between 20 to 100 million deaths. Historical records have captured critical aspects of the disease dynamics, such as the occurrence and severity of the pandemic waves. Yet, other important pieces of information such as the mutations that allowed the virus to adapt to its new host can only be obtained from IAV genomes. The analysis of specimens collected during the pandemic and stil...| BioMed Central