Introduction
102 years ago the world was gripped by the Spanish flu. A flu-like pandemic that is eerily similar to the pandemic we face today. What's very weird, is that it's all but forgotten from history. We all hear about the Black plague and Justinian plague, but this one hardly ever comes up.
It was deadly because it used a massive historical event at the time to spread; and it was this exact same event that obscured it from history.
The Forgotten Pandemic
The Spanish flu came about during World War 1, during a time of great turmoil and globalization. World War 1 masked the true impact of that flu.
During this time of great globalization and expansion, the Spanish Flu spread quickly across entire world.
Despite this flu having killed more soldiers than WW1, WW2 and the Iraq war, we don't recollect it all that well.
This is a tragedy because we have failed to learn from it.
Effects
This flu killed 3 percent of the world population!
Moderns estimates put the number of deaths between 50 and 100 million death alone. As I recall, India had 20 million deaths and the US had close to 700 000 deaths. It even killed people here in South Africa.
This pandemic was bad, and the ways in which it killed a person was horrendous.
Causes
Scholars attribute this pandemic to being either Swine Flu or Bird flu with strong speculation that it originated in the United States and then hitched a ride to Europe via transported soldiers.
Conclusion
Even on Armistice day when the WW1 officially ended, this pandemic was still wiping people out. It was still making it's presence felt long after we achieved a human victory of declaring peace.
The thing that strikes me most about the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 is that both originated from the consumption of meat. Through our killing of animals we unleashed untold devastation upon the world. We were in no position to fight the Spanish flu back then, and nature put us in our place and we chose to forget.
I believe the we will overcome COVID-19 but the devastation will be bad. We're going to need to brace for impact but things will be turn out okay. It always does. We all all resilient that way.
I hope that this time around we will learn to respect Nature more and stop the killing of both people and animals.
