Taubenberger and his group concluded that the 1918 virus might actually have emerged and started infecting humans sometime between 1900 and 1915. Moreover, he said, it is intriguing that the influenza death rates in the United States began rising in 1915 and continued to rise until 1917, when they dropped slightly, followed by a huge spike in influenza mortality rates in 1918. The question he cannot answer, however, is whether the gradual rise in flu deaths before 1918 was the beginning of the 1918 influenza pandemic or whether it was simply a reflection of modest changes in another, much less
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