Sort of recently, I’ve read two accounts of the 1918 flu.
The first was a short story that had the flu as a sort of backdrop to the real story. (That was the excellent and sad “L. DeBard and Aliette” by Lauren Groff.)
And the second is “Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic” by Gina Kolata.
Did you know about this pandemic? I mean, sure, you’ve heard of it. But do you know about it?
More Americans died in one year from the flu than in all the wars of the 20th century. And many of them were previously healthy, young, strong people. Apparently, the deaths were high for the very young, the very old, and people in their 20s.
The flu affected the duration, if not the outcome, of World War I. It changed societal mores. It affected the economy. And it changed medicine forever. But for some reason, the black death of the middle ages gets all the attention. Weird.
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