Why Covid -19 is nothing like the deadly Spanish Flu

Now that covid -19 is officially a pandemic, people have rediscovered the Spanish flu of 1918 that killed between 50 million and 100 million people across the world. Comparisons are being made because pandemics spook people. But should one be looking back at the 1918 flu that also killed the grandfather of US president Donald Trump?

But first, a few quick facts about the Spanish flu. The flu didn’t originate in Spain. Remember, this was 1918 the First World War was still on. Three countries that is US, Britain and France had the same issue that is the flu before Spain, but somehow they managed to keep it put of news ape to “avoid damaging, morale “, Laura spinney reported in a recent article in the guardian. Spain, however was neutral, so it didn’t censor its press. And because news of the flu first reported in Spain it got called the pains flu. But before this name caught on, the Brazilian called it the German flu. The poles, meanwhile, called it the Bolshevik disease.

Today, people are blaming the Chinese. But WHO, in 2015, came out with guidelines on how to name a disease. Hence, no one is calling this Chinese flu or thee Wuhan Plague. So, covid-19 it is a bit mundane, perhaps, but certainly not one to stigmatize a whole country.

Spinney asks a fundamental question in her article:” should we be comparing Covis-19 to flu at all ? The viruses that cause the flu and covid-19 belong to two different families. Sars-coV-2 which causes covid 19 belongs to the coronavirus family. And in that there are greater similarities with SARS( severe acute respiratory syndrome)  that originated in china in 2001 and MERS (middle east respiratory syndrome) which began in Saudi Arabia 2012.

“Unlike flu, which spreads rapidly and relatively evenly thoroughly a population, coronavirus tends to infect in cluster, ”spinney writes. “In theory , that makes coronavirus outbreak easier to contain, and indeed both SARS and MERS outbreaks were brought under control before they went global.”

Most importantly, the world has changed a lot between 1918 and now. In 1918 , a large number of people chose to follow what religious leaders were saying rather than heed the advice of health authorities by ordering evening prayers on nine consecutive days in honor of saint Rocco, the patron saint of plagues. Churchgoers lined up to kiss the saints relics. Zamora recorded the highest death rate in Spain, and one of the highest in Europe.