Wednesday may 13th 2020

Today I would have had Safe haven at St Paul's community centre, but because all social places and cafe's have to remain shut I will have to put up with my own company for now.  I have been doing a bit of research into the Spanish Flu compared with the Corona virus of today and have come up with some surprising reults of which I will put on here.

 

I sold two DVD's on Ebay which is brillient, so from now on this is where thew one's I don't want will end up.  Bit breezy today, our nearest PO is Waitrose, I've heard john lewis could be in trouble, I hope not as they are good.  A lot of businesse's are falling because of the lockdown, one shop I liked in Bournemouth called Gemini and a costume shop in Christchurch have gone into liquidation.

How is the pandemic of Spanish flu of 1918 compared with the Coronavirus today of 2010

I tried explaining this before in a post, but a lot of people misunderstood what I was trying to get across. So I’ve laid it out in simple English, it’s so simple even school children could understand it; if you can’t after all this then that’s your problem not mine. Here’s a list of the 1918 things that were used compared to our 21^st century equivalents of what we use today. Eg typewriter – laptop. Simple, see. The Spanish flu was worse because, well you see as I’ll put it as the first example.

A man spraying the top of a bus with an anti-flu virus in Britain during the Spanish Flu pandemic.

	Spanish Flu	Corona virus
Month it first hit	May (Scottish Port of Glasgow) reached London in June. In October it returned with a vengeance, & reached every corner of the UK.	March
Any shown symptoms	Not yet (but still infected)	Not yet (but still infected)
How it was passed	Troops returning from WW1 in Northern France to the UK on trains. First recorded in Spain.	Some say a wet market in Wuhan in China after eating bat soup, or a laboratory. You make your mind up.
Mode of transport at the time	Steam trains, steam boats	Diesel, electric trains, planes, electric boats.
Prim ministers at the time who caught it	David Lloyd George (survived)	So did Boris Johnson! (Survived, thankfully)
Who could be effected	Age’s between 20-30 years old. it mainly affected young adults, Those aged 75 and above had the lowest death rate of all. Young women, especially those working in factories, were worst affected.	Elderly people with underlying health issue’s. But it has been proven to go for anyone.
Symptoms	Fatigue, fever, headache, develop pneumonia & start to turn blue.	Persistent cough, sore throat, has been known now to cause a rash.
Were hospitals overwhelmed?	Yes, medical students were brought in. No antibiotics to treat the pneumonia	Retired D's asked to come forward, medical students also brought in. People asked to volunteer for the NHS
Did hospitals have respirators	No	Yes (if there’s enough)
Death toll in the UK alone	228,000. More people died of influenza in 1918, than in the four years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351.	32,692 at present
Advice given @ the time	Avoid crowds by catching a later train home, sit outside the bus, & wear an extra coat. Pub goer’s should thoroughly wash the outside lips of drinking glasses in running water. No hand shakes or kissing. keep dirty handkerchiefs out of the reach of children.	Stand 2 metres apart, sneeze into elbow, no hand shaking, only out for exercise once or face a fine.
Were the public asked to stay inside	Stay isolated or go to bed if have symptoms. Gargle with potash & salt.	YES. 14 isolation days if have symptoms. No Ibruphone as provokes fever.
Were schools warned	Yes, telegrams were sent to parents before the Easter holidays. Nurses were there with thermometers to see if pupils were developing temperatures.	Emails were sent to parents and schools closed before Easter.
And Closed	Hundreds of elementary schools were closed during the height of the epidemic. Unlikely home scholing.	Schools closed, children did home schooling
What people typed on	Typewriters	Laptops
How did public places prepare	Every morning, formalin was sprinkled on the floor of Brighton’s public library and post office, and tramcars were fumigated.	2 meter's distance in supermarkets, only few people allowed in. Rest line up outside. People wear masks & gloves. Tills, door handle’s, light switches, screens disinfected with sanitiser.
Living conditions at the time	Terribly overcrowded & insanitary conditions rendered any attempt to cope with the disease  Where up to seven people occupied one small bedroom, isolation, ventilation and cleanliness were impossible.	Not so crowded, but who knows what goes on in people's houses.
Welfare system	No, many couldn’t afford De's etc	Yes. Free NHS.
Video link	Unheard of	Yes
Could people work from home	No	Yes, if possible
Summer gone wrong 1919 2020

Viruses were not well understood at the time and doctors were at a loss as to how to treat people.  In the UK, the most deadly period of Spanish flu was between October and December 1918 and clusters of graves from that period can be found in cemeteries across the land.