The need for speed: can we outpace Covid?

The Spanish flu pandemic a century ago resulted in around 50 million deaths worldwide. Its second wave was over ten times more deadly than its first. History is repeating, with the global death toll from Covid-19 this second winter already three times that of the first. In the UK, the number of deaths in this second wave is close to double the number we suffered in the first wave.

The death toll in the first wave, while tragic, is somewhat understandable. A deadly pandemic came out of the blue, and we had to work out the best way of responding. But we cannot use this excuse to explain the higher death toll in our second wave, as we have had months to prepare this time. Of course, part of the reason for the higher death toll is that our second wave is over a full winter, unlike the first waves that started in March in the UK for both Covid-19 and the Spanish flu a century ago.