Keywords
COVID-19, Spanish flu, pandemic, influenza
Abstract
The intrusion of infectious diseases in everyday life forces humans to reassess their attitudes. Indeed, pandemics are able catalyze rapid transitions in scientific knowledge, politics, social behaviors, culture and arts. The current Coronavirus diesease-19 (COVID-19) outbreak has driven an unprecedented interest toward the influenza pandemic of 1918. The issue is whether history can predict our best preventive response and future scenarios. The aim of this review is to highlight the parallelism between the two pandemics. Starting from epidemiology and clinical features, but further focusing on social and cultural issues, it is possible to unreveal great similarities. Their outbreak pattern lead to hypothesize a similar duration and death burden in absence of effective vaccines or innovative treatments for COVID-19. Thus, then as now, preventive medicine represents the first and most effective tool to contain the course of the pandemic; being treatments available only supportive. Contemporary, both pandemics shared the same pattern of narration (e.g. scapegoating) and the same impact on minorities in high-income countries. Furthermore, visual art did not wait to respond with Graffiti art playing in 2020 the role that Expressionism movement had during the Spanish flu and photography capable to document both catastrophic scenarios. Thus, it is possible to find a lot of clinical and social similarities between the two pandemics. Nevertheless, if the Spanish flu was not unforseen, COVID-19 spillover was partially predictable and its global impact will not be overshadowed by a major crisis such as World War I.
References
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41. A virtual museum of COVID-19 photography. https://www.covidphotomuseum.org/ Accessed on 01/01/2021
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2. Simonetti O, Armocida E. El Alamein: the battle in the battle. How infectious disease management changed the fate of one of the most important battle of the World War II. Infez Med. 2020 Sep 1;28(3):441-449. PMID: 32920582.
3. Ziegler P (1969) The Black Death. Wolfeboro Falls (NH): Alan Sutton Publishing
4. Stenseth NC, Atshabar BB, Begon M, Belmain SR, Bertherat E, Carniel E, Gage KL, Leirs H, Rahalison L. Plague: past, present, and future. PLoS Med. 2008 Jan 15;5(1):e3. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0050003. PMID: 18198939; PMCID: PMC2194748.
5. Martini M, Gazzaniga V, Barberis I, Bragazzi NL, Parodi A, Armocida E. De morbo gallico omnia quae extant apud omnes medicos cuiuscunque nationis: the sixteenth-century collection of Luigi Luigini. Infez Med. 2019 Sep 1;27(3):350-352. PMID: 31545783.
6. Staub, Kaspar and Joël Floris. Down memory lane: Unprecedented strong public and scientific interest in the" Spanish flu" 1918/1919 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Influenza and other respiratory viruses (2020): Epub-ahead.
7. Gina Kolata. Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It. Simon and Schuster, 9 gen 2001.
8. Ashton J. COVID-19 and the 'Spanish' flu. J R Soc Med. 2020 May;113(5):197-198. doi: 10.1177/0141076820924241. PMID: 32407643; PMCID: PMC7366332.
9. Mark Honigsbaum. The Pandemic Century—A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19. Penguin, June 2020.
10. Petersen E, Koopmans M, Go U, Hamer DH, Petrosillo N, Castelli F, Storgaard M, Al Khalili S, Simonsen L. Comparing SARS-CoV-2 with SARS-CoV and influenza pandemics. Lancet Infect Dis. 2020 Sep;20(9):e238-e244. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30484-9. Epub 2020 Jul 3. PMID: 32628905; PMCID: PMC7333991.
11. He D, Zhao S, Li Y, Cao P, Gao D, Lou Y, Yang L. Comparing COVID-19 and the 1918-19 influenza pandemics in the United Kingdom. Int J Infect Dis. 2020 Sep;98:67-70. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.06.075. Epub 2020 Jun 26. PMID: 32599281; PMCID: PMC7318986.
12. Karan A, Ali K, Teelucksingh S, Sakhamuri S. The impact of air pollution on the incidence and mortality of COVID-19. Glob Health Res Policy. 2020 Sep 1;5:39. doi: 10.1186/s41256-020-00167-y. PMID: 32879902; PMCID: PMC7458650
13. Corman VM, Landt O, Kaiser M, Molenkamp R, Meijer A, Chu DK, Bleicker T, Brünink S, Schneider J, Schmidt ML, Mulders DG, Haagmans BL, van der Veer B, van den Brink S, Wijsman L, Goderski G, Romette JL, Ellis J, Zambon M, Peiris M, Goossens H, Reusken C, Koopmans MP, Drosten C. Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR. Euro Surveill. 2020 Jan;25(3):2000045. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.3.2000045. Erratum in: Euro Surveill. 2020 Apr;25(14): Erratum in: Euro Surveill. 2020 Jul;25(30): PMID: 31992387; PMCID: PMC6988269.
14. Shope RE. THE INCIDENCE OF NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODIES FOR SWINE INFLUENZA VIRUS IN THE SERA OF HUMAN BEINGS OF DIFFERENT AGES. J Exp Med. 1936 Apr 30;63(5):669-84. doi: 10.1084/jem.63.5.669. PMID: 19870496; PMCID: PMC2133359.
15. Starko KM. Salicylates and pandemic influenza mortality, 1918-1919 pharmacology, pathology, and historic evidence. Clin Infect Dis. 2009 Nov 1;49(9):1405-10. doi: 10.1086/606060. PMID: 19788357.
16. Esakandari H, Nabi-Afjadi M, Fakkari-Afjadi J, Farahmandian N, Miresmaeili SM, Bahreini E. A comprehensive review of COVID-19 characteristics. Biol Proced Online. 2020 Aug 4;22:19. doi: 10.1186/s12575-020-00128-2. PMID: 32774178; PMCID: PMC7402395.
17. Hobday RA, Cason JW. The open-air treatment of pandemic influenza. Am J Public Health. 2009 Oct;99 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):S236-42. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.134627. Epub 2009 May 21. PMID: 19461112; PMCID: PMC4504358.
18. Ali N. Role of vitamin D in preventing of COVID-19 infection, progression and severity. J Infect Public Health. 2020 Oct;13(10):1373-1380. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.06.021. Epub 2020 Jun 20. PMID: 32605780; PMCID: PMC7305922.
19. Chan KS, Lai ST, Chu CM, Tsui E, Tam CY, Wong MM, Tse MW, Que TL, Peiris JS, Sung J, Wong VC, Yuen KY. Treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome with lopinavir/ritonavir: a multicentre retrospective matched cohort study. Hong Kong Med J. 2003 Dec;9(6):399-406. PMID: 14660806.
20. Gautret P, Lagier JC, Parola P, Hoang VT, Meddeb L, Mailhe M, Doudier B, Courjon J, Giordanengo V, Vieira VE, Tissot Dupont H, Honoré S, Colson P, Chabrière E, La Scola B, Rolain JM, Brouqui P, Raoult D. Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2020 Jul;56(1):105949. doi: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949. Epub 2020 Mar 20. PMID: 32205204; PMCID: PMC7102549.
21. WHO Therapeutics and COVID-19. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/therapeutics-and-covid-19-living-guideline. Accessed on 01/01/2021
22. Munnoli, Prakash Mallappa, S. Nabapure, and G. Yeshavanth. "Post-COVID-19 precautions based on lessons learned from past pandemics: a review." Journal of Public Health (2020): 1-9.
23. Franchini, Antonia Francesca, et al. "COVID 19 and Spanish flu pandemics: All it changes, nothing changes." Acta Bio Medica: Atenei Parmensis 91.2 (2020): 245.
24. https://virus.stanford.edu./uda/fluresponse.html. Accessed on 101/01/2021
25. French advice on the prevention of influenza mortality. BMJ; 1918 Nov 2 (3018); 496. https://www.jstor.org/stable/i20336119. Accessed on 01/01/2021
26. Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med. 2020 Apr;26(4):450-452. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9. PMID: 32284615; PMCID: PMC7095063.
27. America’s long history of scapegoating its Asian citizens When leaders call COVID-19 the “China virus,” it harkens back to decades of state-sanctioned discrimination against Asian Americans. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/. Accessed on 01/01/2021
28. Parmet WE, Rothstein MA. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Lessons Learned and Not-Introduction to the Special Section. Am J Public Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):1435-1436. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304695. PMID: 30303733; PMCID: PMC6187781.
29. Hoppe T. "Spanish Flu": When Infectious Disease Names Blur Origins and Stigmatize Those Infected. Am J Public Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):1462-1464. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304645. Epub 2018 Sep 25. PMID: 30252513; PMCID: PMC6187801.
30. Desai A. Twentieth-Century Lessons for a Modern Coronavirus Pandemic. JAMA. 2020 Jun 2;323(21):2118-2119. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.4165. PMID: 32338731.
31. Krishnan L, Ogunwole SM, Cooper LA. Historical Insights on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and Racial Disparities: Illuminating a Path Forward. Ann Intern Med. 2020 Sep 15;173(6):474-481. doi: 10.7326/M20-2223. Epub 2020 Jun 5. PMID: 32501754; PMCID: PMC7298913.
32. Yancy CW. COVID-19 and African Americans. JAMA. 2020 May 19;323(19):1891-1892. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.6548. PMID: 32293639.
33. https://www.influenzaarchive.org/. Accessed on 01/11/2020
34. Martini M, Gazzaniga V, Bragazzi NL, Barberis I, The Spanish Influenza Pandemic: a lesson from history 100 years after 1918. J Prev Med Hyg. 2019 Mar 29;60(1):E64-E67. doi: 10.15167/2421-4248/jpmh2019.60.1.1205. eCollection 2019 Mar.
35. Goldstein JL. The Spanish 1918 Flu and the COVID-19 Disease: The Art of Remembering and Foreshadowing Pandemics. Cell. 2020 Oct 15;183(2):285-289. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.09.030. PMID: 33064981; PMCID: PMC7560262.
36. How Art Movements Tried to Make Sense of the World in the Wake of the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Anna Purna Kambhampaty, may 2020. TIME. https://time.com/. Accessed on 01/11/2020
37. The 1918 Spanish Flu Wreaked Havoc on Nearly Every Country on Earth. So Why Didn’t More Artists Respond to It in Their Work? Taylor Dafoe, April 16, 2020. Artnet. https://news.artnet.com/ Accessed on 01/11/2020
38. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/ Accessed on 01/11/2020
39. Xavier Tapes. La street art ai tempi del Coronavirus. Ippocampo. Sept 2020
40. Navarro JA. Influenza in 1918: an epidemic in images. Public Health Rep. 2010 Apr;125 Suppl 3(Suppl 3):9-14. doi: 10.1177/00333549101250S304. PMID: 20568565; PMCID: PMC2862330.
41. A virtual museum of COVID-19 photography. https://www.covidphotomuseum.org/ Accessed on 01/01/2021
42. Allen T, Murray KA, Zambrana-Torrelio C, Morse SS, Rondinini C, Di Marco M, Breit N, Olival KJ, Daszak P. Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases. Nat Commun. 2017 Oct 24;8(1):1124. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-00923-8. PMID: 29066781; PMCID: PMC5654761.
43. The Event 201 scenario. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html Accessed on 01/11/2020
44. Ce virus qui rend fou. Bernard Henri-Lévy. Grasset, June 2020
45. Person AK. Infectious Diseases and Advocacy: This Is our Lane. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2020 Oct 23;7(11):ofaa510. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofaa510. PMID: 33235891; PMCID: PMC7665637.