when the press of the XXᵉ century recalls that of 2020

“The Covid-19 which affects all continents and strikes all European countries is the most serious health crisis that France has known for a century”, announced on March 12 Emmanuel Macron, thus making reference to the 1918 flu known as “Spanish”.

The French president is not alone in making a link between the epidemic that decimated the world between 1918 and 1920 – causing an estimated 20 to 100 million deaths – and the new coronavirus. Indeed, since the pandemic of the epidemic at the beginning of March, the press has widely discussed the relevance of the analogy which has also become viral: can we really compare the coronavirus with the Spanish flu?

While there are some features common to both epidemics (contagiousness, mode of transmission, symptoms), the articles on the subject agree that these cannot be assimilated. Indeed, the political, media and hygienic context in which the 1918 flu is declared is in no way comparable to that of the current era.

However, an investigation in the press archives of the XX^e century allows us to spot astonishing similarities between the political management of the two crises, but also in the media treatment of epidemics. This work is carried out within the framework of the European NewsEye project whose platform, accessible to the general public, aims to make exploitable and analyze on a large scale the collections of old digitized press from several European national libraries including the National Library of France.

A “simple flu”

Preventive measures, shortages of medical equipment, delayed communication or even disinformation: the articles published in the columns of newspapers over a hundred years ago seem straight out of the contemporary press.

In April 1918, when the flu spread in Europe, French newspapers did not mention the epidemic. And for good reason, France is living a decisive moment for the end of the war with the great German offensive of the spring and the bombardments of Paris: the world conflict receives all the attention of the national press.

The origin of the qualifier “Spanish” used by the French to designate the flu comes from the fact that Spain, which has remained outside the conflict, is the first to have freely communicated about the epidemic.

We must therefore wait until the summer of 1918 to find information in the French press on the virus which, according to the doctors interviewed, is nothing more than a replica of the seasonal flu. So can we read, in The morning of July 7, 1918, that it is a “vulgar influenza”, “an ordinary flu”, which is “nothing dangerous” and which, obviously is “mild” in France. Similar comments also circulate in regional daily newspapers, as in The Little Gironde, July 8, 1918:

“Professor Chauffard, doctor at Paris hospitals and member of the Academy of Medicine, gave his opinion to one of our colleagues on the epidemic known as the Spanish flu:” The name Spanish flu, did he says, is a ridiculous name. This is not a new evil, but the ordinary flu that escorts bring each winter, and that has been called trench flu since the war. ” “

This underestimation of the risks of spread of the virus in France recalls the reassuring speech of the former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, when the Covid-19 hit China and that the first three cases were about to be confirmed in France, or the awkward predictions of the doctor-animator Michel Cymès, who compared the coronavirus to a viral disease “as we have every year”.

If the political and media context – and in particular the close surveillance of newspapers forced to remain silent by the law on press indiscretions in wartime – can justify the slow awareness of the gravity of the virus in 1918, it is not the case in 2020, at a time when access to information is considered a fundamental right and when journalistic production around the epidemic explodes.

Same recommendations

In addition to military circumstances, articles discussing the “Spanish flu” analogy / Covid-19 point to a significant difference between the two epidemics: the health context. Indeed, the socialization of medicine (social laws, collective care, mutuality, extension of healthcare systems to new social classes, etc.), scientific and hygienic progress – products of the 1918 pandemic – allow us to identify the enemy and deal with the crisis in much better conditions. But it is disturbing to note the same recommendations in the press of the time.

“In yesterday’s meeting, the Seine region hygiene and sanitation board instructed the standing committee on epidemics to draw up advice […] : the flu is transmitted is transmitted directly from the patient to the healthy individual through the nasal mucus and saliva particles projected by coughing or talking, or by hands soiled with saliva.

We must therefore avoid, when it is not necessary, contact with sick people. It is therefore necessary to isolate these from the start of the disease. […] It is recommended that you wash your hands and rinse your mouth every time you treat a flu. In severe cases, it will be useful to place a protective pad in front of the nose and mouth. It is necessary […] avoid meetings of large numbers of people, both outdoors and in closed rooms (places devoted to worship, cinema theaters, department stores, railways, etc.). “

The preventive measures disseminated by health authorities in 2020 are substantially identical to those carried by the press a hundred years earlier. In the absence of a vaccine, hand washing, isolation of the sick, or even quarantine remain our best allies …

Only the consumption of rum, recognized as an effective remedy against the “Spanish” flu, is not included in the list of official recommendations against the coronavirus.

The wearing of the mask was also the subject of numerous discussions in the press from the second wave of influenza in October 1918. Although already highly recommended by the Academy of Medicine and widely adopted by our European and American neighbors, this use hardly convincing in France where it seems incompatible with Parisian fashion.

“But, here it is, will Parisian women agree to disfigure themselves to save their bronchi? I’m afraid they’ll take this mask like the flu, ”we joke in Gallic.

After much debate and government confusion around this use, the wearing of a mask was finally recommended by the Academy of Medicine in early April, and it will be compulsory for certain professions and in certain public places after May 11, 2020.

The debates on the need to disinfect public places or on the virtues of certain treatments also seem to have crossed the times. In 1918, for example, an investigation into the efficacy of quinine, originally used to treat malaria, recalls the current controversies surrounding chloroquine, which is its synthetic substitute.

Finally, despite medical advances and a health system deemed “ready” to deal with the crisis, we can see the same shortcomings: shortages, lack of resources in hospitals or even endangering healthcare staff on the front line.

In 1918, doctors struggled to reach the bedside of their patients because no vehicle was specially dedicated to them, except at their expense. They are also the first affected by lack of protection, which unfortunately still seems to be the case today.

The problems linked to the lack of manpower are also recurrent: while the military doctors are called in reinforcement against the Spanish flu, the government mobilizes at the beginning of March the Sanitary Reserve to face the epidemic of coronavirus.

In 1918, the chaotic situation aroused many criticisms of the government’s management of health crises. The press, which deplores the unpreparedness and laxity of political institutions, calls for the strengthening of measures:

“The authorities do not seem to have undertaken a serious practical fight against the flu – the harm of which is increasing.” It’s pretty much just posters and flyers. However, there are urgent measures to be taken. […] Now is not the time for half-precautions. ” (Le Journal, October 19, 1918)

If the management of the coronavirus pandemic is done at the national level – unlike the flu epidemic managed at regional and departmental level in 1918 – the prefects and mayors are also “put to great use” to “avoid laxity And take the necessary measures to protect populations.

The world of tomorrow and the world of yesterday

In the last century, as today, the closure of social spaces and the shutdown of the economy are conducive to projections and fantasies about the “world after” the disaster.

“A new era is beginning, we must say that prejudices, habits, beliefs, passions, interests are going to be overturned. […] It would be painful to think that an epidemic could pass over the World without being used for anything other than to decrease the number of living. No, the flu has also served to make us think, “analyzes Sixte-Quenin, in an editorial titled” The After-Flu “, published in Humanity December 18, 1918.

More united, more resilient, more ecological, what will the world look like after Covid-19 and what lessons can we already learn from this crisis? For Freddy Vinet, geographer specializing in the “big flu”, this epidemic of the XX^e century must “remind us of the importance of the epidemiological culture that we have lost” and allow us to “mentally integrate the potential impacts of a disaster”. To this end, the press of the XX^e century seems to be a precious ally to keep in mind the past and think about the future, taking care of the fake news already very numerous at the time, as evidenced by this article published in the echo of Algiers in October 1918.

“However, on all sides we wonder: what is this mysterious evil which challenges medical science and which mows entire populations? A rumor spreads which I am obliged to take into account: the epidemic would not be Spanish, Neapolitan, or Eastern, it would be indeed the German flu. It would be the infection spread by the demonic Bohemian chemists who introduced their foul-smelling bacilli into the cans, which sprinkled them with fruits and vegetables; this is why, it is said, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, which received large quantities of Boches, were so badly affected; this is why it is the same for Spain, where so many factories, so many trades operating under Spanish firms, are in reality directed by Germans who have here their chemists and their drugs, which were brought by under – sailors; this is why Spain, in turn, was the first to be invaded with such terrible violence. “

This article is part of the series “The beautiful stories of open science” published with the support of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. To find out more, visit Openlascience.fr.

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