TABLE 1.

Major respiratory outbreaks in last century

Outbreak	Most affected age groups	Area of emergence	Deaths	Fatality rate	Year
Spanish flu	Young adults, elderly and young children	Unclear	20‐50 million	>2%	1918‐1919
Asian flu	Children	Southern China	1‐4 million	0.1%‐0.2%	1957‐1958
Hongkong flu	All age groups	Southern China	1‐4 million	0.1%‐0.2%	1968‐1969
Serious acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)	Middle‐aged adults (45‐65)	China	774	<10%	2002‐2003
Swine flu	Children, young adults and pregnant women	Mexico	18 000	<0.025%	2009‐2010
Middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS)	Elderly (60+)	Middle East	861	>30%	2012
COVID‐19	All age groups	China	36 000 and continuing	>2%	2019‐2020