Question asked on 05/13/2020
Hello,
You are calling us following the publication of a post on Facebook on May 11, which has more than 340 shares this Wednesday. This draws a parallel between the so-called Spanish flu, pandemic that raged between 1918 and 1919, and the current situation.
“No confinement worthy of the name”
The author of this message – who did not respond to requests from CheckNews – invite everyone not to leave “History repeating itself” and to stay “disciplined” despite the progressive deconfinement. His argument: “The most severe pandemic in history was the Spanish flu of 1918. It lasted two years, in three waves of contamination with 500 million people infected and totaling 50 million deaths. Most of the deaths occurred during the second wave of contamination. The population was so supportive of the quarantine and the social distancing measures that, when the first deconfinement took place, the population began to rejoice in the streets, abandoning all precautions. In the weeks that followed, the second wave of contamination arrived, with tens of millions of deaths. ”
Facebook screenshot
This Facebook post contains both historical truths and false claims. Concerning the number of victims, first of all: there is indeed a historical consensus accounting for around 50 million, in total, the number of people who succumbed to the so-called Spanish flu, between 1918 and 1919. This flu (strain H1N1), which takes its name from the fact that the Spanish press (uncensored in this war period) was the first to report it, did indeed cause a terrible pandemic, relatively little studied historically.
Let us then come to the overall purpose of this Facebook post, which is to make a link between a possible deconfinement of the population of the time and the resumption of the epidemic with a second extremely deadly wave. Nicolas Beaupré, historian and specialist in the First World War, details with CheckNews : “As this Facebook post says, the Spanish flu has indeed shown three waves. The first cases probably appeared in the spring of 1918 in Kansas, in the United States. The disease spread to Europe through the ships carrying the soldiers. In the summer of 1918, there was a lull, then a second phase, terrible and much more deadly, left Boston, this time. The third wave spread over time until mid-1919.“
If this story of waves is true, it is not the case for the causes advanced in this viral post. Nicolas Beaupré continues: “It is wrong to say that it was the irresponsible behavior of people during a deconfinement that created the second wave. First because this flu has observed a principle of seasonality – several researchers even suspect a mutation of the virus – which could explain a sudden recovery. Then and above all, because there was no confinement worthy of the name at the time. And, therefore, no deconfinement. ”
“What we are experiencing today is unprecedented”
Several cities, notably in the United States, have implemented physical distancing and hygiene measures (washing hands, not spitting on the floor, etc.). “In Saint-Louis, we closed schools, in Seattle, we imposed the wearing of masks in transport, in New York, we shifted the hours in companies. The sick were also placed in quarantine to prevent them from infecting other people. But no general confinement has emerged. What we are experiencing today with the health crisis linked to the new coronavirus and half of the confined humanity is unprecedented.
Patrice Bourdelais, demographer, director of studies at EHESS confirms to CheckNews the absence of a containment policy at the time in France: “Some people who had the means applied the principle of Hippocrates: leave, early, far, long! But we must not forget that France is at war until November 11, so during the first two waves. The population lives under an exceptional regime linked to the war but there is no policy of systematic and general confinement or closure of schools.“
Same story with Anne Rasmussen, director of studies at EHESS, specialist in the history of pandemics. “In France, there may have been municipalities which, from time to time, closed public places, such as cafes, places of shows especially. But it can be said that there has been no general containment policy. In 1918, in a belligerent country like France, the war was not yet over. A big German offensive is taking place in the spring and the stakes are enormous. We did not want to prioritize health issues over the war that was still going on.“
To summarize, if the so-called Spanish flu was the occasion for several States to impose the distancing measures that we know today, it was not a massive and irresponsible deconfinement which then produced, at the era, a deadly resumption of the epidemic. “This message nevertheless has good intentions, saying that we must remain careful”, specifies Nicolas Beaupré.
EDIT Friday May 15 4 p.m .: addition of remarks by specialist Anne Rasmussen.
Regards,
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