No ordinary flu: Coronavirus and the lessons of the 1918 pandemic for a world on edge
As the death toll and number of people diagnosed with the coronavirus (COVID-19) continue to climb, an expert tells Yahoo News there’s one big lesson that leaders should heed from a pandemic that killed at least 50 million people from 1918 to 1920: “Tell the truth.”
John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” told Yahoo News he commends the breadth of information coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and coverage by the media — a candidness that was absent during the 1918 H1N1 pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu. But he condemned President Trump’s assertion on Feb. 28 that the coronavirus is the Democrats’ “new hoax,” and Rush Limbaugh’s claim that it’s “the common cold.”
“Obviously it’s not a hoax and it’s not a common cold,” Barry said. “Those are two of the stupidest comments that any public official has ever made, if you want to count Rush as a public official.”
Trump’s initial downplaying of the coronavirus threat and subsequent remarks have raised some eyebrows. He contradicted health experts during a briefing on Monday when asked about the timeline for a coronavirus vaccine, claiming one could be ready in “three to four months.” Anthony Fauci, MD, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, corrected the president and said a vaccine is at least a year to a year and a half away. At a White House briefing on Feb. 29, Trump claimed that “the markets are very strong,” even though three major stock indexes had just posted their worst weekly percentage drops since the 2008 financial crisis.
https://news.yahoo.com/no-ordinary-flu-coronavirus-and-the-lessons-of-the-1918-pandemic-for-a-world-on-edge-110055200.html
Limbaugh and Trump, two of the stupidest people to ever walk the planet.