Most folks have heard that the Spanish Flu pandemic at the close of World War I killed millions of people, and was a shocking illness that left memories of it for generations afterwards. This is certainly true.
However, in the context of the current early stages of this influenza outbreak, it is useful to look back at the Big One in a more statistical light.
As many as 2.5% of people who got the flu died.
This does not mean that 2.5% of the world's people died, it means that 2.5% of those who got the flu died.
In fact, only 28% of the world's entire population got the flu at all. 97.5% of them survived.
In other words, in the world's worst flu pandemic in history to date your odds of not getting the flu at all were 7 out of 10, and if you did get it your chances of survival were better than 9 to 1.
And this was before advanced emergency medical care, advanced hospital care and before antiviral and antibiotic medicines.
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