‘This year is not the first time a new pandemic has prompted reexamination of the one in 1918. The 20th century saw two more flu pandemics, which occurred in 1957 and 1968. In both cases, “suddenly the memory of the Great Flu reoccurs,” Beiner says. “People begin looking for this precedent; people begin looking for the cure.” Likewise, during the avian flu scare in 2005 and the swine flu pandemic in 2009, Google searches worldwide for “Spanish flu” spiked (though both increases were dwarfed by the one that occurred this past March). All the while a growing body of historical research has been fleshing out the story of the 1918 flu, providing the foundation for a significant resurgence of its memory in the public sphere.’
Read here (Scientific American, August 13, 2020)
