FLU EPIDEMICS: The COVID-19 toll has often been compared to that of seasonal flu, which, without hitting the headlines, accounts for between 290,000 and 650,000 deaths worldwide every year out of around five million serious cases, according to the WHO. In the 20th century, two major non-seasonal flu pandemics - Asian flu in 1957-1958 and Hong Kong flu in 1968-1970 - each killed around one million people, according to counts carried out afterwards.
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