While estimates of deaths worldwide vary considerably and lack a clear consensus, the toll was certainly in the tens of millions and comprised a much higher percentage of the world population at the time than even the most dire predictions for the current pandemic. The disease also had the odd characteristic of having the greatest severity amongst working age adults, unlike the current pandemic. There is more consensus over U.S. deaths, around 675,000 spread across two years and three viral peaks, two in 1918 and one in 1919. The middle peak in late 1918 was the worst of the three. A death toll of 675,000 represented roughly 0.6 percent of the total U.S. population. A comparable toll on a percentage basis from the current pandemic would equal over 2.0 million deaths, an unlikely figure at the upper end of some models assuming no mitigating measures are taken. The U.S. economy experienced two downturns during the period, one during the Spanish Flu and one shortly after. The first downward cycle lasted seven months from August of 1918, while the war was still ongoing and as the Spanish Flu was entering its second and deadliest cycle. The second lasted for 18 months from January 1920 to July 1921. The growth period in between lasted 10 months from March of 1919 until January of 1920. According to a recently published paper by Robert Barro, Jose Ursua and Joanna Weng for the NBER (working paper 26866), the overall decline in GDP in the U.S. from 1918 to 1921 equaled 12 percent, along with a 16 percent decline in consumption. While their analysis suggests that an “average” country experiencing the Spanish Flu during that time may have experienced declines of 6.2 percent in GDP due to the pandemic, the impact on the U.S. is estimated to have been only a 1.5 percent drop in GDP and 2.1 percent drop in consumption, due to differences in the severity of the pandemic and to lag times between flu deaths and observed economic declines. The remainder of the overall observed decline would be attributed to World War I effects. It should be noted that they use a different mortality count for the U.S. from the Spanish Flu, although the difference would not account for the full gap between the U.S. and their “average” country. Their analysis was unable to determine with confidence whether the any negative economic effects from the pandemic were permanent or temporary. It should be noted that the mitigation efforts against the Spanish Flu were even more varied and generally less substantial than government responses to the current crisis. In addition, governments were neither capable nor inclined to use the range of economic policy tools to stimulate the economy that exist today. GDP is one of the factors used by the NBER in identifying cycles but it is not the only one, nor is it determinative. During three of the downward cycles identified by the NBER since World War II, real GDP levels on an annual basis did not decline. During one period, declines in real GDP are not associated with a designated trough by the NBER. Also, the cycles identified by the NBER are tracked from trough to peak and vice versa. However, the upward trend from trough to peak can be separated into two segments, a recovery period when the economy returns from the trough to approximate prior levels of economic activity, and a new growth phase when the economy moves past prior levels to a new peak.
∴ PROGNOSIS
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