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It’s not surprising that the COVID-19 outbreak has been compared to past pandemics.

When things are dire, people tend to start poking around in the historical archives in search of hope.

One of the most popular comparisons doing the rounds at the moment is between the Spanish Flu, at its height in 1918, and our version of a deadly cousin to influenza, COVID-19.

That comparison was made by Cooperative Governance Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma during a speech delivered last month.

Africa Check, with a direct quote from that speech:

“The world, and our nation, have not been faced by such a potentially daunting challenge since the 1918 Spanish Flu and the 1932 Great Depression. You will recall that the Spanish flu decimated more than 300,000 South Africans over a two-year period.”

Wow, that’s a serious death toll. So, did that many South Africans really die?

Dr Alexander Navarro, the assistant director of the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan, weighs in:

“The truth is, we simply do not have the data to be able to determine the true morbidity or mortality figures, or the resulting case fatality rate,” he said.

“If a victim did not see a physician, they were not counted.  If they did see a physician, there was still a chance they might not have been counted.”

Back in the day, they didn’t have the technology that we have now, making record keeping extremely difficult.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declared the 1918 influenza pandemic as the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century.

It was caused by the H1N1 virus, which is thought to have come from wild birds.

Much like the coronavirus, which was initially referred to, rather problematically, as the Wuhan Virus, the Spanish Flu was so named because it was believed to have originated in Spain. We now know that is highly disputed.

Emeritus professor Howard Philips, a historian at the University of Cape Town, and author of two books on the Spanish Influenza pandemic, says that the official death toll released by the South African government in 1919 was 140 000 to 142 000 for 1918 and 1919.

“There was no comprehensive death registration system in South Africa in 1918. There was supposedly for whites, but for Africans in [the Cape province and Transvaal] there was no requirement to register deaths,” he said.

In many rural areas, there was a requirement, but they were overwhelmed by the number of deaths that needed to be recorded.

To get around these shortcomings, Philips studied the country’s 1921 census. He found that statisticians at the time flagged a significant shortfall of half a million people in the general population.

He compared the number of Spanish flu deaths to the estimated shortfalls in key areas and calculated that the actual death toll was likely between 200,000 and 350,000 people.

In that sense, Dlamini-Zuma was in the ballpark when it comes to her figures, although these figures are largely determined by estimates and assumptions on the part of historians.

We’ve come a long way since 1918, but the misinformation battle we’re fighting at present is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

As with everything you hear and read about the coronavirus: verify.

Africa Check remains a superb resource in this regard, and you can sign up for their WhatsApp #FactWraps by following these instructions.

[source:africacheck]