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A century ago, humanity faced another deadly pandemic, that of the 1918 flu, in which governments and societies made mistakes that unfortunately have been repeated in the current health crisis due to covid-19, reflects in an interview with the agency. of news Efe the historian Cédric Cotter.
The unfairly known as “Spanish flu” affected a third of humanity, killed 100 million people (ten times more than the First World War with which it almost overlapped) and according to Cotter, researcher for the International Committee of the Red Cross, has parallels with the current situation that must be taken into account.
“History never repeats itself completely, but trends can be seen in one of these events also in the other”, he explains, and gives as an example the political use that was then made of the pandemic, in order to blame and stigmatize rival or enemy countries.
The name of the disease, vehicle of nationalism
If in 2020 politicians like US President Donald Trump tried to popularize the term “Chinese virus” to refer to the new coronavirus, in 1918 the epidemic was nicknamed cwith terms like “Bolshevik disease”, “French virus” or “German plague”.
“It is part of human nature to blame the other for what happens to us, but when it is done for political purposes it is useless and only fuels hatred,” said Cotter.
The nickname “Spanish flu” finally triumphed, today even used by the World Health Organization (WHO), phighlighting precisely one of the countries that showed the most transparency towards the epidemic, for its neutral condition in the First World War.
“The disease did not originate in Spain, but as its press could report it, many people thought it wrong, since other countries did not report their cases because of wartime censorship,” explains the ICRC historian.
Rumors and censorship, now and then
That censorship suggests another parallel between the 1918 flu and the 2020 coronavirus, since in both cases there was a pulse between the tide of false rumors, on the one hand, and the sometimes excessive efforts of the authorities to control the flow of information. relating to public health.
Regarding the rumors, Cotter, who underlines that “the ‘fake news’ are as old as humanity”, recalls that in 1918 ideas such as that the Germans had developed the disease as a biological weapon have already circulated among the allied powers (France, United Kingdom, Russia, USA).
Meanwhile, in Germanic lands “it was said that the virus was a mere invention by the government, and that the dead were not due to influenza but to malnutrition”, stresses the expert in the interview.
In 1918 they already circulated among the allied powers, as the Germans had developed the disease as a biological weapon.
The rumors of yesterday and today (in 2020 multiplied by the diffusing power of social networks) were sometimes tried to stop with censorship, a method that according to Cotter “It is not the best, because people will try to look for information anywhere.”
“What is needed is for the authorities to be transparent when explaining why they take the measures, so that people follow them and do not try to look for answers in other sources of information,” he stresses.
The debate on prevention measures
The historian sees other similarities between two epidemics a century apart, such as the citizen protests that then and now took place in the United States in protest against prevention measures.
In the USA of 1918 “some alleged that the mandatory use of face masks was against the constitution and their personal liberties, reason why there were demonstrations and subsequent arrests, “he told Efe.
That flu struck in three waves (one in the spring of 1918, the second and deadliest in the fall of that year, and a third in the spring of 1919), which should serve to remind the world today that it will have to remain vigilant after the coronavirus is withdrawn.
“It was then observed that in the cities that stopped their measures too soon (there were also closings of shops, schools, churches …) there were new waves of flu,” Cotter warned.
The flu of 1918, which affected personalities such as the Spanish King Alfonso XIII, the US President Woodrow Wilson or the German Kaiser Guillermo II, proliferated in a world already devastated by war, and Cotter, who prefers not to speak of the current fight against the covid-19 in warlike terms, launches a final message on the relationship of the current pandemic and conflicts.
“I don’t want to risk predicting whether this pandemic will lead to more conflicts, which I am sure is that it can wreak havoc in countries that, like Europe in 1918, are already destroyed by war, the case of Yemen or Syria “, concludes the historian.
EFE
