In last week's vice-presidential debate in Salt Lake City, Utah, Mike Pence made a rather outlandish reference to the swine flu epidemic of 2009.
In defence of President Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 crisis, Pence claimed that the Democrats had done a worse job of handling the swine flu. “When Joe Biden was vice-president of the United States, 60 million Americans contracted the swine flu. If the swine flu had been as lethal as the coronavirus … we would have lost two million American lives.” claimed Pence.
While that might be an alarming statistic, the swine flu was never considered to be anywhere near as lethal as COVID-19. During 12 months of the 2009 outbreak there were only 12,500 deaths despite the fact that 61 million tested positive for the swine flu virus.
To date COVID-19 has killed more than 210,000 Americans of the 7.5 million who have tested positive, with U.S. epidemiologists predicting that death toll will double by Christmas.
In August, it was Trump who made an even more unhinged comparison between COVID-19 and the Spanish flu of 1918. “Nobody's ever seen anything like this (COVID-19 pandemic).” Trump said at a press briefing. “The closest thing was in 1917, they say right? The Great Pandemic – and it certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 (million) to 100 million people. It probably ended the Second World War. All the soldiers were sick. It was a terrible situation.”
Despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly claimed himself to be “the most militaristic person ever” his displayed knowledge of martial history is way off the mark on this one.
The Spanish flu pandemic ran from 1918-19 and it did not end the First World War, let alone the Second World Wari, which did not start until two decades later. For the record, no war in history ended when all the soldiers called in sick.
However, Trump was correct in stating this pandemic was devastating. His figures are correct on a death toll of between 50 million to 100 million people dying worldwide. In fact, more than 500 million were infected with the virus which at the time represented one-third of the Earth's entire population. To apply those percentage rates to the population of 2020 would mean 2.6 billion people infected with up to 550 million deaths.
Which brings us to the question of why is so little taught about this viral pandemic that wiped out more people than both world wars combined?
For my generation, it was mentioned in history class as a brief footnote between weeks of studying the First World War followed by weeks of inclass study learning about the Second World War.
In Canada, it is believed that the deadly Spanish flu came home with those veterans returning from the battlefields in Europe. As such, the disease was soon spread to every nook and cranny of the country.
It claimed the lives of 50,000 Canadians and one can presume that of that number many were soldiers who had survived the horrors of the trenches only to fall victim to a deadly virus upon return to Canada.
Even though this pandemic affected every corner of our nation and killed more people than were lost in the Second World War, to my knowledge there is not a single monument to acknowledge Canada's collective suffering.
Almost every city and town in Canada has some form of war memorial complete with a list of battle honours earned by our troops on foreign battlefields. Yet there is no markers and no annual day of mourning for the 50,000 who perished here on Canadian soil.
While some will argue that the war monuments salute those who voluntarily made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of Canada, we also erect such tributes to the victims of tragedies such as the sinking of the Titanic or the downing of Swissair Flight 111.
I have to believe that if we were better informed on previous pandemics we would be better equipped to prepare ourselves for future ones. It would also prevent gaslighting politicians from trying to bamboozle the electorate with apple to orange comparisons.
