Spanish Influenza 1918 - Extra History

[Shawnster]

A 6 part YouTube series on the history of the Spanish Flu.  Something worth learning about as history repeats almost exactly a century later.

 

The 1918 Flu Pandemic - Emergence - Extra History - #1

Between 3 and 6 percent of the world's population died in 18 months when the flu first tried to take over the world. In today's episode we explore the flu outbreak's origins from military camps across the United States and Canada.

 

The 1918 Flu Pandemic - Trench Fever - Extra History - #2

The flu arrived in France. It found a pleasant home in the crowded wartime trenches, much to the dismay of the Allies who tried to keep the flu a secret. When it made its way to Madrid, not subject to wartime censorship, it picked up the nickname "Spanish flu."

 

The 1918 Flu Pandemic - Order More Coffins - Extra History - #3

Dr. Welch, Dr. Avery, Dr. Park, and Dr. Williams are on the hunt now to correctly identify this new pathogen and make a vaccine. But public officials are in denial.

 

The 1918 Flu Pandemic - Fighting the Ghost - Extra History - #4

Philadelphia gets hit the hardest. New York fares somewhat better, but everyone is trying to keep hush-hush about a pandemic that still found its way into a children's rhyme: influenza.

 

The 1918 Flu Pandemic - Leviathan - Extra History - #5

This is a global pandemic. The flu jumps ship, literally, onto the docks of American Samoa, of South Africa, of Alaska, of India. The 1918 flu infects every human continent.

 

The 1918 Flu Pandemic - The Forgotten Plague - Extra History - #6

Why did everyone forget about the flu pandemic so fast? Partly because its effects were intermingled with the death and depression of World War I, and partly because we chose to forget.

 

Some interesting facts about these videos.  They were recorded a year ago and are not in response to the Coronavirus.  It was called the Spanish Flu because newspapers in Spain were the first to report to the world what was happening.  The British government was censoring the story and intentionally not telling the people.  The Spanish Flu gained a foothold due to World War I.   The Spanish Flu was the H1N1 swine flu.

 

I do not want to downplay the seriousness of the Coronavirus, but watching these videos reassured me that it might be more difficult to reach the same level of death that the Spanish Flu reached.  Modern medicine has come a long way in 102 years.  The governments are not trying to sweep this under the rug and act like nothing is happening.  Even if you believe the government is downplaying the numbers, you can't deny that we all are hearing daily updates about the virus.  The situation is being well covered by the media.   We are seeing greater efforts to quarantine people and already have seen events canceled and laws in place to limit the size of gatherings in some locations.  We have more labs and resources today to create vaccines and methods to treat the ill and fight the disease.  

Edited March 5, 2020 by Shawnster

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Thanks for the links. I haven't watched them all, but they look interesting.
Thought I would post this here as a reference...

Just Older

[Ludwika]

I don't really think we've actually come much further than 1918 in combating viruses, otherwise ordinary flu epidemics would not take such an annual toll. They are much harder to treat than bacteria, and they can mutate very fast, so they can outwit scientific efforts to deal with them. That's why the flu jab each year often fails to keep up with new strains. Good hygiene and isolation are still the main weapons we have at our disposal. Even with protection not available in 1918, front line medical personnel are dying from this virus. Modern life has made people somewhat complacent, we think we can deal with anything, nature sometimes tells us differently. 

[Hope]

On Netflix-

  https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/netflix-pandemic-universal-flu-vaccine

[Newtonian]

I'm sure glad that this past year I was in the hospital with bronchitis to pneumonia from bacteria: first -  Strep; the second from some other microbe that was not Strip, or Flu type A or B.  Antibiotics helped and I was cured both times.  However, anti-biotics cannot kill viruses though they can eliminate some complications.   

 

There are anti-virals - but the media is not mentioning them.  Why?  Don't some anti-virals work on Corona Virus?

[patkatt1]

There is more information in the December 22, 2005 awake on this. Very interesting reading!