{"id":107464,"date":"2021-05-18T11:30:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T06:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=107464"},"modified":"2021-06-12T18:37:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T13:07:11","slug":"no-learning-from-the-spanish-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/no-learning-from-the-spanish-flu\/","title":{"rendered":"No learning from the Spanish flu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Synopsis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The governments of several countries have failed to understand and foresee human behaviour. This is even after they have witnessed a pandemic like the Spanish Flu in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Introduction\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Spanish Flu of 1918 was the most severe pandemic in history. It lasted for 2 years, in 3 waves, with 500 million people infected and 50 million deaths. Most of the mortalities occurred in the 2nd wave.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The people were fed up with the quarantine and social distancing measures. The people rejoiced in the streets as soon as the measures were lifted. After which the second wave occurred and claimed tens of millions of lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to James Harris, a historian at Ohio State University, the reason behind the spread of a second wave was that officials were reluctant to enforce restrictions during the war despite the presence of a new mutated strain.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why did the people not take lessons from the past?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We haven\u2019t learned from history to prevent millions of infections and deaths worldwide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Firstly, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Knowledge doesn\u2019t change behavior. Having information about the Spanish flu is very different from having to live through a similar pandemic. For instance, being<\/span><b> informed about the protectiveness <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the masks doesn\u2019t make people wear them. Similarly, knowing about social distancing <\/span><b>doesn\u2019t make people perform it.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Secondly, in many countries, people were fed up with lockdowns,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> wearing masks, staying at home, and not socializing last year. Human beings are social animals. <\/span><b>Social banishment has been proved to cause pain<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the brain similar to putting up with physical pain.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Thirdly, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as soon as the number of cases began to decrease by the end of the first COVID-19 wave, <\/span><b>governments and people across the globe started to let their guard down.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Many businesses were allowed to restart.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>For example, restaurants that were doubted to be one of the major centers for the spread of COVID-19 were given consent to open.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Signs outside their doors read \u2018No entry without a mask\u2019, but visitors could remove their masks even while not eating once they were inside.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><b>People could talk, laugh, sneeze, and cough in indoor non-ventilated spaces<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. These people knew about the threats of this behavior.\u00a0 Some of them must have read about the Spanish flu. However, awareness and action often lie at opposing ends.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Where did the governments go wrong?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everyone needs to contribute to breaking the chain of COVID-19 infections. However, the final duty of managing the pandemic cannot be on the people. It is the job of governments.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Governments of most nations failed to learn from the Spanish flu <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">because they failed to realize and foresee human behavior. For instance, the government in India allowed election rallies and religious gatherings.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>The government hesitated in imposing a lockdown despite the rise of new strains<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the virus. Leaders were seen making speeches in crowds and conducting meetings without masks.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every politician wants to win over people and give them what they want. <\/span><b>They declared victory prematurely and gave rise to policies that caused the second wave.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The conclusion\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries which opened up too soon after the first wave. But it didn\u2019t. This has led to a huge rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overconfidence in the government\u2019s ability to manage the pandemic and underestimation of the ability of COVID-19 to cause infections and deaths in the second wave led to the surge in infections. We have the benefit of curbing COVID-19 by vaccinating people now at least.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=G128JCC8K.1&amp;imageview=0\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Click here<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: The governments of several countries have failed to understand and foresee human behaviour. This is even after they have witnessed a pandemic like the Spanish Flu in the past. Introduction\u00a0 The Spanish Flu of 1918 was the most severe pandemic in history. It lasted for 2 years, in 3 waves, with 500 million people&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/no-learning-from-the-spanish-flu\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No learning from the Spanish flu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[1289],"class_list":["post-107464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-soc_0","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704879229},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}