So, the 50 million (minimum) who died during 1918-19 - Who spent millions on an official inquiry about that disaster? Nobody. The police investigation into that has so far cost over £5.5 million. In 2007 Madeleine McCann, aged 3, disappeared whilst on holiday with her parents in Portugal. In 1993 a black teenager was murdered by racists in London There was an official inquiry into that, at a cost of £4.2 million. The official inquiry into that event lasted 12 years and cost £195 million. In 1972 British troops killed 13 Irish people in Derry in an event known as Bloody Sunday.
The huge meaning some human deaths acquire - here's three examples. The differences between one time and another, one place and another, are so vast it makes your head hurt. It would be hard to think of a more effective dissemination mechanism than the demobilization of large numbers of troops … who then travelled to the four corners of the globe where they were greeted by ecstatic homecoming parties. Actually World War One gave Spanish flu a great boost : Spanish flu killed between 50 and 100 million. It wasn’t Spanish (it might have been Chinese or – how about this – from Kansas!) but it killed more people. Who would win in a fight between the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19 and World War One? We had a million imaginary fights between strange opponents (who would win in a fight between President Obama and the cast of Glee?) but we never thought of this one : If she wasn’t The Queen Brenda would win easily. But of course our imaginary fights swiftly became more outlandish – “who would win in a fight between Brenda (who is Georgia’s grandmother, an elderly lady) and The Queen?” In this case it was : The Queen would win because although she is very old and frail, Brenda would be too scared to clobber her, because she’s The Queen. When she was around 11 or 12 I used to play a game with my daughter called WHO WOULD WIN? I’ll give you an example – the first player says something like “who would win in a fight between a lion and a polar bear?” Each player then tries to find the best reason why one or the other would win. This wasn’t the jolliest read, but heck, my friendly GR poppets, life is not all ha-ha-ha, hee-hee-hee. So should you be wondering what a REAL epidemic looks like, this was the big one. It was really bad and it happened before medical science understood what was causing it. The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 is the gold standard of modern epidemics and this book is a solid account of what happened.
Revived review as a public service during the current Coronavirus outbreak.
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