1

Spanish Flu vs. COVID-19

Kimberlee Wiggers

Youngstown State University

NURS 4844: Community Health Nursing

Dr. Kim Ballone

September 24, 2021

Introduction

A pandemic is an outbreak of a disease worldwide. COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu of

1918 are two of the deadliest pandemics to date. The Spanish Flu swept through the globe taking

many lives with it, and now COVID-19 has begun to do the same. These pandemics occurred

over a century apart, during very different time periods. Although quite a bit of time separates

these two pandemics, there are still many similarities between the two as well as some

differences.

Similarities

For similarities, it starts off with the origins of each disease. Both COVID-19 and the

Spanish Flu are both thought to have originated from some type of animal. For the Spanish Flu

they suspected that it either came from birds or pigs. Whereas COVID-19 is thought to have

come from bats. Both pandemics started off in one area of the world, and then rapidly spread

throughout the globe.

During the spread of each disease, health professionals have been able to create a list of

signs and symptoms. They are similar in nature to each other. For the Spanish Flu, the main signs

and symptoms were cough, fever, delirium, heliotrope cyanosis (also known as the “Blue

Death”), and forceful cough (Docs, 2020). The signs and symptoms of COVID-19 include fever,

cough, shortness of breath, headache, loss of taste or smell, trouble breathing, etc. (Pathak,

2021). Based upon these symptom lists it shows that both diseases heavily effect the respiratory

system. In both, the disease is transmitted by droplets, which for example could be passed from

coughing on someone. When both diseases cause coughing that makes transmission of the

disease that much easier if the proper precautions aren’t followed.

 Lastly, another similarity is that both diseases have had different appearances. The

Spanish Flu occurred in three different waves, each causing more and more death. As for

COVID-19, they have recently discovered a new outbreak called the Delta virus. Due to the

overwhelming amount of people getting sick during the new waves and outbreaks, this causes

hospitals to get overrun. In both cases hospitals were short staffed and were overfilling their

capacity. For the Spanish Flu if people got sick, they stuck them all together in one big area,

which was their take on quarantining. Whereas with COVID-19 the hospitals were quickly

running out of room because those infected were quarantined in single rooms. So, while each

handled the flood of patients differently it still led to health care professionals being burnout,

along with places of care bursting with people.

Differences

While the pandemics are similar in a lot of aspects, they still have their own unique

qualities. One difference was that during the Spanish Flu they would mark those that were

infected with a knotted, white scarf (Docs, 2020). This was their way of letting people know who

was infected and to stay away from them. COVID-19 doesn’t make people that are infected wear

anything specific, but they do encourage those infected to isolate themselves to prevent others

from getting sick.

Another difference between the two was how they were spread across the globe. The first

official cases of the Spanish Flu were within the military, specifically the army, and then spread

due to them travelling different places during the war. Whereas COVID-19 was spread due to

people traveling in airplanes internationally and nationally. COVID-19 was spread faster among

many different places due to the advancements of travel that wasn’t available during the time of

the Spanish Flu.

 Lastly, the age groups with the highest mortality rates were different for each. The

Spanish Flu had the highest mortality rate among those ages twenty to forty. It was thought that

the weaker the immune system, the less likely people were to die and vice versa. However, for

COVID-19 the highest mortality rates were among the elderly, specifically sixty-five and older

(“Centers for Disease”, 2021).

Interventions of the Spanish Flu

The Spanish Flu came with good and bad interventions during their outbreak. One of the

positive interventions was the masks law, which required people to wear mask when out in

public and if they were caught not doing so, they were taken to jail. While this may seem

extreme to some, they were looking out for the population as a whole. Another successful

intervention that occurred was shutting businesses down in order for people to be encouraged to

stay at home in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Lastly, another good thing that

occurred was with all the hospital staff being overwhelmed it led to nursing students being able

to help with the pandemic. This allowed extra hands to be used to care for patients along with

them being able to gain first-hand experiences.

While the Spanish Flu had many successful interventions, they also had some mistakes

that were made. One of their mistakes was that they tried to create a vaccine for the virus but

didn’t have enough knowledge on it at the time, as a result it never worked. Due to there being

no actual cure for the Spanish Flu many took it upon themselves and tried to scam people by

saying they came up with a magical cure, such as vitamins and remedies. This led to a lot of

people getting misinformation on treatments. Lastly, another mistake made was when the second

and third waves came around people thought that since they had mask now that would be enough
to stop the disease, so they didn’t shut down businesses. Due to the misinformation it led to a

higher mortality rate.

Interventions of COVID-19

Due to a lot of the technological and medical advancement over the past 100 years it has

allowed for better and more efficient interventions. One of the more successful interventions is

contact tracing. This is a big part of this pandemic because it allows those that have been in

contact with someone that has been infected to be notified, so they can quarantine themselves to

try and slow the spread. Another effective intervention is the COVID-19 vaccine, which was able

to be developed and distributed quickly. The vaccine is helpful in decreasing the severity of the

disease in most people. Another successful intervention was governmental assistance such as

stimulus checks. Due to these being provided to most people it allowed people that lost their jobs

due to businesses being shut down to still be able to provide for themselves or their families. On

the other hand, businesses being shut down was a major negative during this pandemic because

while it was done to keep people safe it caused a lot of businesses to lose a lot of money, if not

lose their entire business especially smaller companies. Another negative intervention was no

visitors allowed in hospitals, nursing homes, etc. This caused people a lot of turmoil because

their loved ones were dying alone, and nobody could be there for them. Lastly, the media

coverage during this whole pandemic has been more harmful than helpful. Granted they want to

keep the public informed, but the majority of the time they cause more panic and misinformation

due to not all media broadcasting the same message.

Conclusion

Overall, the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 hold a lot of similarities to each other, while still

being different in certain aspects. Both pandemics made some good choices in the interventions
along with some mistakes. They both had a deadly impact on millions of people’s lives globally.

Hopefully in the future if another pandemic should occur, they can learn from the successes and

mistakes made during both these time periods, in order to provide a better outcome.
 References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, September 9). Risk for Covid-19 infection,

hospitalization, and death by age group. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Retrieved September 22, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-

data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html. 

Docs, Merc. (2020, April 19). Spanish Flu 1918: The Forgotten Pandemic. Youtube.

Retrieved on September 15, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvt0ldtJFIM

Pathak, N. (2021, July 2). Symptoms of Coronavirus: Early Signs, serious symptoms and more.

WebMD. Retrieved September 22, 2021, from https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-19-

symptoms#1.