History Repeating Itself: How This 2020 Pandemic Looks Startlingly Similar To 1918 Flu
More than 100 years of scientific and medical advances have done little to change how the world responds to a pandemic. Meanwhile, a new study looks at how the 1918 outbreak helped lead to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany -- one example of the ways such a crisis can dramatically change humanity's trajectory.
The Associated Press:
Virus-Afflicted 2020 Looks Like 1918 Despite Science's March
Despite a century’s progress in science, 2020 is looking a lot like 1918. In the years between two lethal pandemics, one the misnamed Spanish flu, the other COVID-19, the world learned about viruses, cured various diseases, made effective vaccines, developed instant communications and created elaborate public-health networks. Yet here we are again, face-masked to the max. And still unable to crush an insidious yet avoidable infectious disease before hundreds of thousands die from it. (Woodward, 5/5)
The Guardian:
The Big Picture: Spreading The Message About The 1918 Pandemic
his picture was taken in California in 1918, during the second wave of the Spanish flu pandemic that killed more than 50 million people around the world. In an effort to curb the spread of the disease, some states quarantined citizens; others made the wearing of face masks mandatory, at the same time as shutting down “all places of amusement." According to a law passed in San Francisco in October of that year, on the day that state-wide infections passed 50,000, anyone seen not wearing a gauze face covering was subject to fines that ranged from $5 to $100 and the possibility of 10 days’ imprisonment. (Adams, 5/3)
The Wall Street Journal:
New York Fed Paper Finds Pandemic A Century Ago Fueled Nazi Rise
Nazis rose to power in Germany in part because of dislocations caused by a mass-death pandemic a century ago, research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Monday said. The paper, written by bank economistKristian Blickle, examined how the German political system reacted to the influenza pandemic that struck the world between 1918 and 1920. Those events have been back in the world’s consciousness as nations attempt to navigate the coronavirus crisis. (Derby, 5/4)
