Between the 1918 Spanish flu ... and the 2020 Corona pandemic

The poor and the most vulnerable have borne the brunt of epidemics throughout history

• Customers have abandoned restaurants in Spain.

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• A security guard organizes shoppers' entry to the Christmas Market in Saint Lucia, Spain.

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• Las Provincias neighborhood that has been removed.

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Historical studies show that efforts to eradicate the "Spanish flu", by removing low-income neighborhoods in the Mediterranean city, may have helped spread the disease further.

That was in October 1918, when the second wave of the so-called "Spanish flu" reached its climax, the largest pandemic of the twentieth century, killing more than 50 million people around the world.

In its second wave, the pandemic exhausted the resources of all municipalities across Spain to the maximum, and the Mediterranean region was particularly affected.

The mayor of Alicante, Antonio Bono Luc, was forced to hold an extraordinary session of the city council on 14 October to seek help from the civil governor, José María Caballero, who represents the political authority of the government in the province.

The mayor explained his plan to combat the epidemic, which he called "Spanish flu", even though its source was not in Spain.

He needed money to buy healthcare equipment.

But he also wanted to remove parts of the city's three poorest neighborhoods and move residents elsewhere.

This measure, which was implemented effectively, ultimately helped spread the virus further.

The council session records, kept in the Alicante municipal archive, show that Puno stated the following: “The places where the most deaths occurred and are still going on are the parts of the city with the least amount of sanitation and hygiene”.

He said that these disease hotspots are found in places where housing lacks the basic elements, namely those huts at the foot of Santa Barbara Castle, where people live in crowded and miserable conditions that cause damage to public health.

The mayor was visiting Las Provincias, a cluster of houses clinging to the slopes of Mount Pinacantel, which settled in the center of Alicante in the early 20th century.

Bono suggested action on Las Provincias, and parts of the Carmen and Arpal Roig neighborhoods, which he described as the main flu concentrations in the city.

It was also suggested that places be created to accommodate anyone who becomes homeless because of these health measures.

Since then, Las Provence has disappeared not only materially, but also from the collective memory of modern Alicante.

But the other two still exist.

“It was normal for the most vulnerable people to bear the brunt of the spread of the epidemic,” says Maria Isabel Porras, professor of the history of science at the University of Castilla-La Mancha during the 1918 influenza pandemic. “Epidemics never affect everyone equally, always the greatest impact on people. People with fewer resources, who suffer from malnutrition, and live in crowded and cramped places. ”

There are common stories between the "Covid-19" pandemic and the "Spanish flu", says Porras, when "some neighborhoods of Madrid were closed", referring to the densely populated low-income areas south of the Spanish capital in September.

She asserts that the 1918 plan to sterilize the poor areas of Alicante forced the population to leave the area.

"In many cases, they were resettled, which led to the dispersal of families, and workers from the areas in which they worked were returned to their original cities."

On the socio-economic level, the similarities between the two pandemics are very clear, Pouras says: "It is the feeling that we are always facing the same thing, and the same dilemma, between economy and health."

"In 1918, the local authorities requested financial aid and loans, and food banks were activated for the needy, and as we can see today, we resort to plans to keep jobs, and unfortunately we see food lines again," she added.

"But there is only one fundamental difference. In 1918, people of working age were the ones who died in greater numbers, so the impact on economic activity was even greater than the impact of the closure last spring," she concludes.

• Epidemics never affect everyone equally. The greatest impact always falls on people with fewer resources, those who suffer from malnutrition, and live in crowded and cramped places.

• A 1918 plan to sterilize the poor areas of Alicante forced the population to leave the area.

In many cases, they were resettled, which separated families, and workers from the areas in which they worked were returned to their home cities.

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