The worst ever pandemic
By: Saamir Ansari
Tags: Covid 19, Pandemic, Coronavirus, History, 2020

The Worst Ever Pandemic

How the Spanish Flu became the worst pandemic ever witnessed

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 is said to have infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide — about one-third of the planet’s population — and led to the death of up to 50 million people. It is still the deadliest pandemic in history.

Although the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain widespread news coverage of the pandemic was broadcast from Spain due to its neutrality in the First World War. Other Allies did not openly report on the flu pandemic in order not to affect morale and as a result, the coverage of the pandemic was forever equated with Spain and the name has stuck even to the present day.

Though the death toll and its devastating effects are clear the origins of the 1918 flu strain are still elusive.

According to historian Mark Humphries, the mobilization of large numbers of Chinese laborers to support both the French and British war efforts may have been the source of the pandemic but this too is still not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

It has also been widely suggested that the first case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918, where American soldiers were preparing to fight in World War I.

The height of the Spanish Flu reads like a news report from this year: cases quickly spread to urban populations that were completely unprepared for such unprecedented hospitalizations and the rate of infections. Makeshift hospitals and morgues sprung up across cities as infection rates spiraled out of control as citizens were ordered to wear masks in an attempt to prevent further infections. Schools and businesses were shut and curfews and bans on mass public gatherings were also commonplace in many countries.

To make matters even worse, the Spanish Flu had a terribly high death rate in seemingly healthy young people. As a result, it was reported that more U.S. soldiers died from the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during the war. Nearly half of the US Navy was affected and more than a third of tall armed forces experienced symptoms at some point in the height of the pandemic.

It is often assumed that in 2020 we inhabit a world that is far more open and interconnected than 100 years ago and thought this is mostly true one cannot forget that during the First World War mass movements of people were commonplace as young men and women across the globe left small towns and traveled far and wide.

Although the Covid 19 vaccine is now being administered thanks to the work of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine one must recall that there was no vaccine ever created for the Spanish Flu and in fact, medical treatments at the time were completely inadequate.

One of the primary pharmaceutical treatments for the Spanish flu was aspirin and medical professionals widely recommended up to 30 grams of aspirin daily. This amount is now known to be far too high and medical historians believe many of the deaths from the Spanish flu were either caused or accelerated by aspirin poisoning.

According to Jeffrey Taubenberger in History, since the whole world had been exposed to the virus a natural immunity against its effects the virus mutated in a process called “antigenic drift.”

Incidences of the original strain of the 1918 flu reemerged in both the winters of 1919–1920 and 1920–1921, however, they were far less fatal and nearly indistinguishable from the common seasonal flu that was everpresent in the winter months. Taubenberger does state that even today elements of the 1918 flu strain can still be found. It seems history remains hidden in the present, allowing us to learn from it.

Though 2020 is about to come to an end, we must look to the past to see how people lived through the worst ever pandemic. Through this, we can look to the future with togetherness, resilience, and hope.