Abstract
It is often claimed that the exceptional severity of the Spanish flu, one of the most deadly events in recorded human history, is an unsolved mystery. However, even detailed aspects such as its W-shaped mortality curve are well explained by Paul Ewald’s theory of the evolution of virulence. Understanding the causes of the Spanish flu will help to prevent future epidemics.
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(Reprinted with permission from Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Taubenberger and Morens 2006, p. 19)
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Acknowledgements
I thank two reviewers for their comments, and once again, Hamilton McMillan was a great help with the text.
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Roes, F. The Curious Case of the Spanish Flu. Biol Theory 13, 243–245 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-018-0307-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-018-0307-9