It’s not surprising that the 2020 coronavirus outbreak is being compared to past pandemics.

Many are wondering, has something like this happened before? Can we handle this?

One of the most common comparisons is to the Spanish flu.

The Spanish flu was terrifying because it proves that a cousin of the influenza virus has the potential to wipe out millions of people, however, things have changed a lot since 1918, when the pandemic was at it’s worst.

The world didn’t make the connection between the flu and the virus until 1933, plus antibiotics were only discovered a decade later and antiviral medication was barely even comprehendible.

Vox spoke to Laura Spinney, author of Pale Rider and expert on all things ‘Spanish flu’:

“The Spanish flu is one of the worst, if not the worst, pandemic humanity ever went through, and it’s really anomalous in the history of flu pandemics,” she explains. “We’ve had 15 flu pandemics in the last 500 years, and the last five since the 1890s have been properly measured in a scientific way. None [but the Spanish flu] has killed more than 3 million people maximum”.

A lot of the preventative measures we’re relying on in 2020 were similar during the time of the Spanish flu.

“They had the kind of social distancing measures that we’re still using today: isolation, quarantine, masks, hand-washing, staggering rush hour so you don’t have massive crowds in the metro and the streets. Those are techniques that are very ancient. People have always understood you have to keep the healthy and the sick separate,” Spinney explains.

No one actually knows the exact origins of the Spanish flu but the general consensus is that the flu started in America, not Spain.

The virus subsequently spread through Europe, hitting a host of countries including Spain.

Due to wartime censorship, the Spaniards thought they were the only nation affected by the pandemic. Hence, the virus is now widely known as the ‘Spanish flu’.

The virus was so severe that historians have identified three separate ‘waves’ of infection, the first of which quickly spread to Germany and Spain from American soldiers during wartime. While this is important because it affected the strength of all involved in World War I, the so-called Spanish flu was just getting started.

The second wave saw the virus brought to the African continent by British imperial fleets. While coughs and sneezes gently subsided in Europe during this time, the flu also found its way to Japan, China and India.

“The second wave of the flu, in particular, had more brutal effects than typical influenza, not least because it was likelier than the ordinary flu to be joined by bacterial pneumonia. This, subsequent research has suggested, caused most of the deaths in the 1918 flu outbreak.”

By the time the third wave of the virus was in full swing, no continent was untouched.

Nothing like a strong dose of history to put COVID-19 in perspective.

I’ve never been so grateful to have modern medicine, remote work options and take-out delivery.

[source:vox]