A century after the „Spanish flu“ pandemic of 1918 left millions dead, this season has been the worst in a decade. Public Health England announced that this winter three times as many people have died from flu compared to the previous year. Australia saw a doubling in the number of deaths, and figures were also up in Europe and the US… The so-called Australian flu is nothing more or less than seasonal flu. Seasonal flu infects roughly a billion people worldwide each year. Of those, around 5 million have severe cases and 500.000 die, so it’s not trivial, even if the vast majority of cases are mild. But Australian flu is not a pandemic for the simple reason that H3N2 is not new.
Source:
Emily Blunt: The Devil Wears Prada by David Frankel, 2006
nbcnews.com, Flu Frenzy, 02.03.2018
theguardian.com, Hannah Devlin, 01.02.2018
theguardian.com, Laura Spinney, 09.01.2018