“LEST WE FORGET”

THE 1918 PANDEMIC PANDEMIC

Comparing the Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918 flu pandemic shows that the consequences of people’s rebellious behaviour in 1918 was just the same as now. 100 years ago people protested social distancing. Whenever masses of people protested and rebelled another wave of the pandemic killed millions more. That was a century ago and one hopes we have not forgotten. The rebellions about social distancing and the deadly waves of the flu epidemic that followed were tragic and preventable.

The USA is repeating the same mistakes based on “freedom” that they did in 1918-1919 and we are already witnessing history repeating itself as 1000 die daily in the USA as I write this in August 2020.

Fortunately in Canada we have a low death rate because this kind of rebellion against social distancing is not part of our political traditions.

Perhaps we should have created a worldwide Remembrance Day … “Lest We Forget the Pandemic” that killed 50 million people like my grandfather in 1919.

Us “Moderns” of 2020 tend to imagine that the people of 1918 lived under unsanitary conditions but it’s not true. Sanitation, running water and sewer systems in North America were well established by 1880. By 1900 surgical masks were already in wide use in hospitals. You cannot blame unsanitary conditions on the early 19th century flu Pandemic.

The vaccines will probably fail to be very effective initially. Yet in all likelihood the Covid-19 will burn out on its own in two years. All we can do until then is save lives through social distancing until the pandemic dies out.

See Link:
Protesting Social Distancing in 1918 led to millions of deaths. History is repeating itself:
https://indianexpress.com/article/research/lessons-from-1918-spanish-flu-when-mask-laws-triggered-protests-in-us-6547350/

(Here on Vancouver Island where I live it’s almost a Covid-19 free zone which gives us a warped perspective of the pandemic. I’m finding the negative comments that this post generates quite amusing)