As we sit in our homes in isolation in an attempt to “flatten the curve,” it’s helpful to remember that this is not the human race’s first rodeo.A little over a century ago, in the midst of the world’s first experience of total war, a virulent virus raged through every corner of the globe, killing an estimated 100 million people. Most families were touched by the pandemic. My grandfather was spared from service in World War I because the second draft in which he would have been called up was canceled as a result of the pandemic. A strong and healthy young man, he later nearly died from the virus; his aunt suddenly came down with the influenza and was gone within a few days, leaving behind a bereaved husband and several young children.
Such experiences were commonplace, as Gina Kolata, a science journalist for the New York Times, recounts in this book. But this is more than just the story of the 1918 pandemic. Until relatively recently, scientists had no clue about the genetic makeup of the 1918 virus or what made it so dangerous. The search for the answers to these questions about the Spanish Flu, eerily similar to the frenetic search for knowledge about COVID-19 currently underway, makes up the heart of Kolata’s story.
