So was it a super virus or not? ∞
Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.
According to this decent myth-busting listicle from the Smithsonian, the Spanish flu was not a “super virus” and may have been lethal as much because of the social context as any biological properties it had.
On the other hand … it was sequenced a few years ago and inflicted on monkeys that had some lethal immune system overreactions to it (“cytokine storm”). So that may account for why it killed so many more younger people than flus usually do. Seems like there was something a bit super about it. 😬