After 1918,
was the world prepared for COVID-19?
A century ago, the world battled with a pandemic and even hundred years down the line, the situation hasn’t changed much.
Even after a century, the Spanish Influenza is called by many as the mother of all pandemics. Infecting around 500 million people worldwide, which were about a third of the population then, it shook the whole globe to its core. It was only in 2005 that scientists were able to recreate the virus in their labs and study it. This brings forth the obvious question, are we equipped to deal with a pandemic of this scale? The rate at which the coronavirus epidemic continues to wreak havoc leaves no doubt in one’s mind about the answer.
The two are being compared because of the many similarities shared by them. Their origin happened in a fashion termed as “zoonotic spillover”. This means the transmission or the crossover of the virus through an animal reservoir to humans (like in the case of the coronavirus, it was from bats to humans). The diseases are highly infectious and are spread through the air by either coughing or sneezing. Both were propagated at a fast pace owing to the fastest transport systems of their times. For the Spanish Flu, it was steamships and steam locomotives while for COVID it was jet aircrafts. The symptoms by people carrying the different viruses are also the same such as difficulty in breathing, coughing and sneezing, fever and might lead to pneumonia and death.
In the graph given below, with data provided by Our World in Data, the magnitude of the effect of the Spanish flu on life expectancy can be clearly seen on some of the major countries of the world. The sudden decline caused due to the deadly pandemic is unnerving.
In order to keep it from spreading, social distancing was practiced in 1918 as well. When the influenza spread, Philadelphia in the US paid no attention to the warning and went along its normal routine which led to a steep rise in the number of cases. A total of 4,500 people died in a week. Meanwhile St Louis, which was 900 miles away, shut down all its schools etc. and practiced social distancing. The difference in number of cases between the two is shown clearly through the graph. Even in our current times, social distancing is one of the most important measures that is being used to “flatten the curve”. In fact, the Spanish flu left a lot of lessons on how to handle pandemics in its wake but nobody paid any heed. The graph below, containing data provided by the National Academy of Sciences, provides an insight into how much of an effect social distancing had during the year 1918 for the cities of Philadelphia and St Louis.
In the diagram given, the severity of coronavirus cases is shown. According to calculations done by experts, the novel coronavirus is estimated to have an R0 of 2.2, which means that each patient can infect more than two people. R0 of the 1918 pandemic virus was 1.80 and therefore, the situation at hand is deadlier. Also, what adds to this is the fact that the incubation period of coronavirus is 14 days while it was only a day or two for the flu. It is not even necessary that a person who is carrying the current virus will show the symptoms since there have been many cases where it was asymptomatic.
The coronavirus is affecting the older population and young adults the most. People who are older than 70 years have a higher risk of dying. This is because the virus affects their immune systems, which are already waning and they don’t have the energy to fight the virus. Surprisingly in 1918, it was the other way round. Young adults who were between 18-40 years of age with strong immune systems, over-responded excessively which lead to fatal results in numerous cases.
Even though it has been a century, and a whole lot of medical advancement has happened, no country in the world was ready for COVID-19. A lot of issues, which were prevalent a century ago, are still being faced. Problems such as shortage of medical supplies and trained staff, spreading of misinformation and generally, absence of a unified approach. It has gotten to the point that doctors and nurses in some areas of India, have resorted to reusing face masks due to their shortage. Another cause of concern is that according to a study done by a scientist in the US, even ventilators can only help till a certain point. While certain studies have shown the death rates of people on ventilators to be as low as 25%, cases where it has ranged between 50% and as high as 98% have also been recorded.
The alarming rise in cases in the US, even though it is one of the most developed countries in the world, goes on to prove just how potent this virus is and how helpless the situation is. In the graph given below, with information provided by BBC, the highest number of cases and deaths in the top 20 countries of the world have been shown.
The Spanish influenza took the lives of 700,000 Americans and the coronavirus has also hit the country severely. The number of confirmed cases already stand at 370,000 according to John Hopkins University. This is four times the number of official cases in China. In fact, US, UK, Spain, Iran and France now have higher death tolls than the country of origin China where 3,300 people have died.
However, not all is lost as the non-fatality rate is 97.7% while subsequently, the fatality rate is 2.3%. Moreover, more than a hundred clinical trials are in place right now worldwide where drugs that have been approved might be re-purposed to battle with COVID-19. Reportedly, dozens of countries are working on vaccines so as to be ready if a second wave is to hit, as is currently the case with China.
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