The “Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918/19 was awful and it was terrible. The 1918H1N1, to give its proper name, has been estimated that it infected about a third of earth’s human population and killed about 50 million people. In Britain alone the virus was responsible for the death of about 250,000 people. The high death rate in healthy people, particularly those in the 20-40 year age group (often from a secondary infection), was a distinctive feature of this particular pandemic. The Daily Mirror reported that 65 soldiers had to be buried at sea from just one troopship before it arrived at Southampton. The global economy decreased by about 5 per cent.
Sometimes death came terrifyingly quickly with victims turning blue-black and drowning in their own body fluids. There were no influenza vaccines or antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections. It wasn’t proved that Influenza was caused by a virus until 1933.
When the outbreak started WW1 was still happening and there were wartime restrictions on helpful communication. The amount of infections and deaths were suppressed in many countries fighting in the war so as to maintain public morale. Spain, a neutral country, had no such restrictions and newspapers were allowed to openly report on the impact the flu was having. This meant the rest of the world thought the situation particularly bafd in Spain - hence the inaccurate name “Spanish Flu”. Historian John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza,” wrote that the US Congress passed a Sedition Act in May 1918, which made it a crime to “wilfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States.” That meant, whether they wanted to or not, the newspapers had to suppress any reports of the flu epidemic. It also meant, according to Barry, that “against this background, while influenza bled into American life, public health officials, determined to keep morale up, began to lie.” The huge movement of soldiers around the world contributed to the transmission of the H1N1 virus with a speed never before seen.
Follow us on social media
KZfaq- / @mrviral353
Facebook - profile.php?...
Instagram - mrviral9839...