Coronavirus and the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919

About 100 years ago, there was a worldwide flu pandemic which killed between 17 and 100 million people. The latest statistics I've seen for the coronavirus say that deaths are still under 1/4 of a million. After killing millions of people, influenza a century ago quickly mutated into a much less deadly strain. It wasn't until decades later that a flu vaccine was developed. And maybe someday, we'll be able to convince people to actually take the flue vaccine.

I've been thinking about the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, because it seems to me that the flu back then was about as contagious and deadly as coronavirus, and that the difference in casualties between the pandemic back then and the current one has a lot to do with the helpful, simple advice which science has given us to deal with coronavirus: stay away from other people. Don't touch your face. Wash your hands regularly.

By contrast, governments around the world censored information about the flu pandemic. They tried to keep people from finding out that there was an epidemic at all. And they did such a thorough job of that, that to to this day, many people have still never heard of the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, and we still don't know whether it killed 17 million or 100 million people.

It may seem very cruel, in the midst of all the current suffering, for me to say that things have been much worst in the past. But they have, and humanity survived, and what I'm trying to do here is not to be cruel but to give people hope. For all of the sheer stupidity leading to illness and death at the current time, a century ago, a comparable outbreak of illness was handled much worse still, and we survived, and we learned, and we developed vaccines and worldwide institutions to anticipate and react intelligently to epidemics. Yes, clearly, many people are reacting stupidly to coronavirus, and it's getting people killed. Still, it's not as bad as the flu pandemic a century ago, and the main reason why is because, overall, we're reacting and behaving much better, much more intelligently and effectively. We're putting into effect what we've learned from earlier epidemics.

And as horrible as the news is now, day after day, I firmly believe that we will survive this, and that we will come out of this smarter and wiser than we were. That's how I see things, looking through the perspective of centuries.

Now, back to the daily horror: how do we get through to the people, from governors in some states to protesters in other states -- and for once the news from the US is so horrible that, frankly, I don't even know much about how things are being handled in other countries. I'm overwhelmed by the domestic news -- how do we get through to these people, and get them to follow the very simple procedures, distance, masks, washing hands, which work so well?

I don't know.

All I can think of to do is to urge everyone who reads this to think about what we can do to get through to those people, before it's a matter of horrible, obvious statistics showing in hindsight that they were wrong. We need persuasiveness so urgently right now. I feel my lack of persuasiveness so intensely.

But I can't give up. I have to urge all of you not to give up. Try to change people's minds, to save lives.