Lessons from the 1918 flu epidemic could help us fight Covid-19

An army hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, US, filled with the first victims of the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918. We can learn from when and what public health measures were successfully implemented to decrease the number of deaths from this epidemic for the current Covid-19 pandemic. — US National Museum of Health and Medicine

The World Health Organization (WHO) has attributed the rapid spread of Covid-19 to “alarming levels of inaction” by many countries.

Although social-distancing measures such as working from home, closure of educational institutes and banning of public events, are essential components in mitigating the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, there appears to be a delay in adoption of these measures in many of the affected countries.