Just looking at the Wikipedia pages for each pandemic, the Spanish Flu is “generally accepted” to have killed 25 to 50 million people. The Wikipedia page for COVID-19 cites a 2022 The Economist article that estimates 18.2 to 33.5 million death toll for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of course, the world population was probably less than a quarter of what it is now, so a higher percentage defintely died. Probably because of the relatively crappy health care at the time
Just looking at the Wikipedia pages for each pandemic, the Spanish Flu is “generally accepted” to have killed 25 to 50 million people. The Wikipedia page for COVID-19 cites a 2022 The Economist article that estimates 18.2 to 33.5 million death toll for the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates
The COVID-19 pandemic is the 5th most deadly epidemic/pandemic in human history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemics#By_death_toll
Of course, the world population was probably less than a quarter of what it is now, so a higher percentage defintely died. Probably because of the relatively crappy health care at the time