
A century on, why are we forgetting the deaths of 100M? - indogooner
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/25/spanish-flu-pandemic-1918-forgetting-100-million-deaths
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LarryL
I fail to see how "we" are forgetting. I also fail to see how "something
similar could strike again" is news, since it's a recurrent -scary- topic
every flu season.

The 1918 flu outbreak is regularly in the news, especially when the flu season
is about to start, and there have been some serious worries about a possible
similar nasty flu version in the last past years.

Just last week, I read an article in a magazine about it. Among other things,
it explained that the origin of the flu was probably not Spain, but they were
"scapegoated" because nobody wanted to be held "responsible" for it.

~~~
evgen
That is not quite accurate. There was a war in progress at the time and news
media was heavily censored. Spain was a neutral and did not censor their
press. The Spanish press reported the early ravages of the illness while this
news was censored in other countries; by the time it could no longer be hidden
by the war powers it was already associated with Spain because that is where
it was first reported. It was not about scapegoating or blame, just a
consequence of how the public learned about the disease.

~~~
bearcobra
Somewhat off-topic: This reminds me of some compelling argument I've read
about how the "Florida Man” meme is the result of Florida’s strong freedom of
information laws. It’s interesting how the free flow of information/reporting
can easily distort public perception when compared to places with more
barriers.

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christkv
I always found this possible correlation of the high mortality to aspirin to
be interesting. If true the high mortality might have been a side effect due
to the high dosages given during that time.

[https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441](https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441)

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poulsbohemian
So where might the average American learn about a significant 20th century
event like this? One might think, having been significant in terms of number
of deaths or role in public health, that it would be covered in say, high
school social studies or history class. But I suspect it gets at most a brief
mention as a "Thing that happened in 1918." Much of what gets taught in public
high schools is really with a theme of Manifest Destiny: the pioneers came and
conquered, threw off the yolk of foreign royalty, sought to create freedom
from sea to shining sea. Under that theme, the flu isn't something that could
be beaten or conquered. It isn't some foreign menace that we can beat back
with bombs. So, it doesn't get any coverage, it's really that simple.

~~~
dkarl
_Much of what gets taught in public high schools is really with a theme of
Manifest Destiny: the pioneers came and conquered, threw off the yolk of
foreign royalty, sought to create freedom from sea to shining sea_

I think that's what people remember when they think back to their own history
classes, because that's all they were prepared to assimilate and remember when
they were teenagers. This comes up often when somebody learns about something
horribly imperialist the United States did, or something horribly racist or
otherwise corrupt that happened here. Their first reaction is, "Why didn't
they teach us THAT in high school? It would have made history class so much
more interesting and personally meaningful to me!" Of course they WERE taught
that in high school, and odds are they had a nice idealistic teacher who did
their best to help them personally connect with it, but it didn't make any
impression on them because they were teenagers and didn't give a shit.

tl;dr They did teach you that and you were bored out of your skull and forgot
it as fast as you could.

~~~
poulsbohemian
I disagree - my daughter is at this age now and I’ve reviewed the materials
they cover. My mother was also a junior high history teacher for about fourty
years, so I saw a lot of history textbooks. So while a datapoint of one,
especially after reading books like “lies my teachers told me”, I’m pretty
well convinced my data is not an outlier

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scarejunba
* Because it was a century ago

* Because we have public agencies watching for this

* Because it's a rare event

We didn't forget. We dealt with it.

~~~
ghaff
You're not wrong. But what people tend to mean is that for an event that
killed _so_ many people in the not really dim past, people as a whole are
relatively unaware of it. It probably killed fewer than the Black Death (of a
significantly larger population) but the number of victims was of the same
order of magnitude.

~~~
boulos
But that's precisely because percentages are what matter, right? The Black
Death wiped out a big chunk of Europe at the time (25% plus). While the
Spanish Flu killed 100M people, the world simply was much larger 600 years
later. Only Samoa was as badly hit (in percentage terms) by the flu as all of
Europe was by the plague.

Lots of people got sick, and it was a worldwide pandemic, but the black death
was much more deadly.

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asplake
The BBC just did 'The Flu That Killed 50 Million' [1] – I watched it myself a
couple of weeks ago

[1] [https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0blmn5l/ad/the-flu-
th...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0blmn5l/ad/the-flu-that-
killed-50-million) (I would guess UK only)

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petra
Could we somehow target the mechanism that makes viruses airborn, and since
there's no real we would want viruses to have that quality(right?), and defeat
all airborn viruses for good ?

~~~
qbrass
People are the mechanism. Wear a mask.

------
msvan
Humans have a tremendous bias towards good stories with heroes and villains.
World War II is a great story, and Hitler is a memorable villain who has come
to symbolize evil. A flu outbreak is just a massive tragedy without anyone to
take the blame. It doesn't survive as a story.

------
ars
It's well known that acts of God cause much less long term stress in people
than acts of people.

The flu was an act of God, and people easily moved on, unlike the other deaths
mentioned there.

~~~
polotics
Act of God? What The Flu! Massing millions of young men in dirty trenches, no
washing, no sleeping, extreme stress hence weakened immune systems, was the
perfect breeding ground for the virus. I would leave God out of this if I were
you, or it may cough in your general direction!

~~~
samatman
While I get your point, the grandparent is quite correct about why the Spanish
Flu doesn't provoke the anxiety that, say, WWII does.

The human psyche is easily made comfortable with bad results if they don't
appear to originate in human evil. Even when, as you correctly point out, it
actually does.

~~~
aseal
It's summed up well by the Joker in the 2nd Christopher Nolan batman movie:

JOKER: You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do
with one if I caught it! I just do things. The mob has plans. The cops have
plans. Gordon's got plans. Y'know they're schemers. Schemers trying to control
their little worlds. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to
control things really are. So when I say that you and your girlfriend was
nothing personal, you know I'm telling the truth. It's the schemers that put
you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and, uh, look where that
got you.

I just did what I do best. I took your little plan, and I turned it on itself.
Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets,
hmm? You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan.
Even when the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I told the press that, like, a
gang-banger would get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up,
nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan. But when I say that one
little old mayor will die, well then everybody loses their minds!

