Amusingly, if you look at the talk section [1] of the Wikipedia article on the Spanish flu, some folks really (suddenly, recently, completely by coincidence) want to call it the 1918 flu.
There's no con job like a retcon job.
There's no con job like a retcon job.
> To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu". Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin, with varying views as to the origin.
It's not like we call syphilis "French pox" any more.
Lyme disease was around in humans long before its identification in Old Lyme, CT, so it too is an inaccurate name.
(We've also learned a few things since the 1970s, let alone 1918. Now, we have a standard: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadl...)
There are two separate issues here: Place-based names cause a stigma (an issue for new diseases, less so for historical ones) and that "Spanish flu" is actually completely wrong on the origins of that specific disease.
I am asking that because you did not address it in my original comment, so I am going to harp on it again. Why now?
It was a global pandemic that didn't even start in Spain. We happen to be paying a lot of attention to it because it's the last really global pandemic of similar severity/spread to the COVID-19 outbreak. The increased attention to this little bit of history has us asking whether we should correct the inaccuracy in its name.
Even the CDC calls it the "1918 flu pandemic". https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoratio...
Not as a reaction to COVID-19, either: "Page last reviewed: March 21, 2018"
I guess the Socratic method isn't going to work here.
Bluntly put, some folks are full Ministry-of-Truthing away at Wikipedia to help justify their attempts at erasure of the "Wuhan flu," China connection. That's why it is happening now. "See, we don't call it the 'Spanish flu,' so why should we call it ..."
It's terribly skeezy.
The timeline doesn’t work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retired_Atlantic_hurri...
Unlike the rest of world, who were covering up their military losses due to illness.