Influenza is a virus. It is always a virus. A virus is known as an ’infective agent’. It is known as that because is not a living organism as it requires a host cell to reproduce.
A bacterium is a prokaryote, a single celled living organism, of which some cause disease.
They are two completely, irrevocably different things.
Give the man credit, this is spot on.
The only thing it leaves out, pneumonia is an infection in which the lungs become inflamed and filled with fluid that interferes with oxygenation. Pneumonia can be viral or bacterial. Bacterial infections are opportunistic. That is to say, bacteria are always present, awaiting only the opportunity to infect. Viral infections can weaken a person to where they become susceptible to bacterial infections such as pneumonia.
So someone with Spanish Flu could indeed contract and even die of bacterial pneumonia. But that is not even remotely the same as saying Spanish Flu was a bacterial pneumonia. This is categorically false.
Score one, thecarpathian.