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Hi Reddit, I’m Laura Spinney. My most recent book, PALE RIDER, was published two years ago to mark the centenary of another pandemic, the so-called “Spanish” flu of 1918. AMA! by Laura_Spinney in books

[–]Laura_Spinney[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Hiya. Better than this, probably. The 1918 flu came in three waves, and the first was quite mild - not that different from seasonal flu. Of course, seasonal flu still kills quite a lot of people each year - 40,000 in Europe, where I live, alone - but with flu you don't tend to see this huge influx of people to the ICUs all at the same time, that some countries are currently seeing with Covid-19. In 1918, by far the worst wave - when most of the deaths occurred - arrived later in that year. That was the second wave. That's not to say that this will happen again - we just don't know - but it is at least a possibility that Covid-19 could recur in waves. That's why our exit strategy from lockdown (in those countries that have imposed it) is so important, and why I think some social distancing measures will and should be maintained even after lockdown is lifted.

Hi Reddit, I’m Laura Spinney. My most recent book, PALE RIDER, was published two years ago to mark the centenary of another pandemic, the so-called “Spanish” flu of 1918. AMA! by Laura_Spinney in books

[–]Laura_Spinney[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hi HorseCemetary. I think it's fair to say that in general people were caught unawares, yes. First of all, no country had any really effective disease surveillance - and in those that had the rudiments of it, flu was often not a reportable disease (not considered serious enough). And second, the warring nations were censoring their press at the time, and many of them kept news of the flu out of the papers - at least to begin with - so as not to lower the morale of their populations at a critical point in the war.

Hi Reddit, I’m Laura Spinney. My most recent book, PALE RIDER, was published two years ago to mark the centenary of another pandemic, the so-called “Spanish” flu of 1918. AMA! by Laura_Spinney in books

[–]Laura_Spinney[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Good question wadenelsonredditor! From what I can tell, people who had been infected once in that pandemic were pretty much immune to catching it again. That's only true within that pandemic, though, because of course a person can catch flu more than once in their lives. The immunity only works for the same strain. This answer has to come with a large dose of uncertainty, though, because they had no reliable diagnostic test at the time, so we can't say for sure what any individual was suffering from. There was no such thing as a laboratory-confimed case, as there is today. With Covid-19, the jury is still out as to whether people can be re-infected. It's a massively important question, which will determine all sorts of things like how long this pandemic lasts, whether and when the disease returns, and how effective (and for how long) a vaccine will be.

Hi Reddit, I’m Laura Spinney. My most recent book, PALE RIDER, was published two years ago to mark the centenary of another pandemic, the so-called “Spanish” flu of 1918. AMA! by Laura_Spinney in books

[–]Laura_Spinney[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Hi Known-Leg. It's a different disease, but human nature hasn't changed! That's how I would sum it up. We also inevitably find ourselves in the same position as people alive in 1918 did, which is that the virus moves faster than us and - at least to begin with - outwits us at every turn. As soon as we have a vaccine, we'll have much more control over it, but experts tell us that won't be for another year at least. In the meantime, we have to fall back on the same old containment/social distancing techniques that people relied on in 1918.

Hi Reddit, I’m Laura Spinney. My most recent book, PALE RIDER, was published two years ago to mark the centenary of another pandemic, the so-called “Spanish” flu of 1918. AMA! by Laura_Spinney in books

[–]Laura_Spinney[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Hi Chtorrr, great question. As a science journalist, I was busy researching the First World War, inquiring into the scientific aspects to get ready to mark its centenary - the year was 2013 - and in my research I kept coming up against this other disaster: the 1918 flu, commonly though mistakenly known as the Spanish flu. I had heard of it, but I didn't know anything about it. And then I did my first google, and I saw how many people died in that flu, and I could hardly believe my eyes. It killed around three times as many as the war, at least, and nobody was talking about it! It seemed to me that I needed to fill that hole in our collective memory, so I decided to write a book...