From time to time, it seems, that humanity must mourn the loss of thousands of people through catastrophes, illnesses, war situations caused by politics, religion or ideology, which remain in the memory of the people and are not forgotten, although the human being it seems to be the only animal that trips over the same stone twice. Now that we are experiencing a global pandemic, it is worth taking a look to see that a similar situation has already been experienced in the past. Let’s find out how it was Spanish Flu: origin, history and characteristics of this other pandemic.
In the first decade of the century it was feared that the swine flu or SARS (or SARS) were the 21st century pandemicswhich made us look back and look at the last pandemic with lethal consequences in humanity, known as the Spanish flu.
In this article we will try to explain in the most objective, concise and precise way the origin, development and characteristics of this flu.
Origin of the Spanish Flu
The first thing that should be made clear is that the Spanish flu, contrary to what its name says, did not originate in Spain, in fact, the name has nothing to do with the development of the flu in Spain. It has to do, instead, with an unfair description given to it by the press throughout Europe that stems from two reasons that are also completely unrelated to the health field:
- The absence of military-type censorship in Spain during the pandemic (around 1918/1919).
- The declaration as a neutral country in the face of the war conflict of the First World War by Spain.
And how is that related to the spanish flu? Simple, the pandemic had been silenced or, rather, censored, in all European countries at the time until its arrival in the Spanish nation in mid-May. So… if it is not Spanish, where did it originate? Historiographically, three points or foci of the pandemic have been considered, however, it seems that two are more accurate than the third, which would be Russia, which currently seems ruled out. So, we are left with two foci:
- United States: it is the most likely focus of the pandemic, in fact, it has been determined that it originated in a US army camp in Funston (Texas) on March 4, 1918.
- China: Although it seemed ruled out like the US, many historians do not rule out the possibility that there were two different outbreaks of the pandemic (rather than a single one in the United States).
It spread rapidly precisely because of the especially active world war situation and, therefore, it reached the magnitude of another of the great pandemics that humanity has experiencedalthough in that case it was in the Eurasian area (mostly Europe): the Black Death.
Learn about other historical pandemics:
Development of the Spanish flu
The development of the flu can be explained by three outbreaks, all of which had very similar morbidity and mortality rates, that is, the three outbreaks were equally lethal and, contrary to what one might think, the second and third outbreaks third did not have a lower incidence. Chronologically speaking, the outbreaks occurred in the following order:
- First outbreak in the spring of the year 1918.
- Second outbreak in autumn of the year 1918.
- Third outbreak at the beginning of the year 1919.
Taking into account that all Spanish flu pandemic outbreaks were (more or less) similar numerically, reported deaths at the time, around 20 million peoplehave been put under the magnifying glass by different and numerous experts.
In fact, it has been concluded that the figures could have been abysmally different given the amount of censorship, lack of data and, in turn, little interest on the part of governments, given that the main concerns were related to other matters of a fundamentally warlike nature.
The figures that have been proposed have doubled (we are talking from 30 to 50 million dead) and even quintupled the number declared so far, reaching the point of assuring that total world deaths could reach the peak of 100 million people. .
The lethality of the so-called Spanish flu was such that, statistically, it has been calculated that about 10% of the world’s population died: Let’s keep in mind that all these deaths occurred in a short space of time, approximately two years, so the figures are terribly bad.
Of the total deaths, Spain ended with some 270,000 deaths, which reaffirms the injustice of the description imposed on the country. Curiously, the city of Madrid did not contribute as many deaths in the second outbreak as might be thought, given that it was where this flu was discovered to be present.
More about the pandemics that Spain has suffered:
Characteristics of the Spanish flu
The first and perhaps most important characteristic of the Spanish flu is that its group or affected age range was the one from young adultsaround 20-40 years of age, extremely low if we compare it with the groups affected in other pandemics.
When a group like this is affected, there is an extremely catastrophic consequence: the economic one, since the mass of workers is precisely around that average age (it remains more or less like this today).
Also, as we discussed earlier, another distinctive element of this flu is that it was just as forceful in its three outbreaks, in other words, its morbidity and mortality rates remained stable between outbreaks.
In the same way that the morbidity and mortality rate (relationship of the two mentioned above) was maintained high among young. If one characteristic is its high level of contagion, the fact that the world was going through a war situation did nothing but worsen the scenario, already tragic in itself.
The moments of war do nothing but overshadow the other sectors of its development and prevent more effective solutions (and decisions) from being made. As indicated by many scientific works that you can access by searching for the keywords Spanish flu in Google Scholar, another reason for the disaster was the poor sanitary conditions in many cities.