News > For many Covid fatalities, the virus isn’t the sole killer

For many Covid fatalities, the virus isn’t the sole killer

The 1918 influenza pandemic resulted in the loss of over 3% of the world’s population – at least 50 million people. But it wasn’t the flu virus that caused the majority of these deaths. An analysis of lung samples collected during that flu pandemic indicated that most of the deaths were likely due to bacterial pneumonia.

Similarly, many deaths associated with the flu and Covid-19 don’t occur at the hand of the virus alone. Instead, it’s a secondary bacterial infection.