HOW DOES COVID-19 COMPARE TO HISTORY’S DEADLIEST PANDEMICS? (MARCH 23 UPDATE)

Tuesday, 24 March 2020

HOW DOES COVID-19 COMPARE TO HISTORY’S DEADLIEST PANDEMICS? (MARCH 23 UPDATE)

This is an updated variant of the video “History’s Deadliest Pandemics: From Antonine Plague To COVID-19” released on March 19.

This video visualizes some of history’s most deadly pandemics, from the Antonine Plague to the ongoing Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The Novel Coronavirus outbreak started in China in December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020. The outbreak was officially declared a pandemic on March 11.

The featured pandemics by death toll:

Black Death (Bubonic Plague) – 200 million dead
New World Smallpox Outbreak – 56 million dead
Spanish Flu – 40-50 million dead
Plague of Justinian – 30-50 million dead
HIV/AIDS – 25-35 million dead
Third Plague – 12 million dead
Antonine Plague – 5 million dead
17th Century Great Plagues – 3 million dead
Asian Flu – 1.1 million dead
Russian Flu – 1 million dead
Cholera Pandemics 1-6 – 1 million dead
Japanese Smallpox epidemic – 1 million dead
Hong Kong Flu – 1 million dead
18th Century Great Plagues – 600 thousand dead
Swine Flu – 20 thousand dead (the number was updated, in the previous variant of the video we mistakenly used ‘200 thousand dead’)
Yellow Fever – 100-150 thousand dead
Ebola – 11.3 thousand dead
COVID-19 – 14,705 (as of March 23)
MERS – 850 dead
SARS – 770 dead