In 2003 we faced another deadly threat: the H5N1 virus, or bird flu. ibid.
In 2010 a group of children across the UK began to develop the same set of disturbing symptoms. And the diagnosis when it came was devastating. Doctors were also alarmed. It wasn’t just in the UK. The Kids Who Can’t Stay Awake, Channel 4 2015
Over 800 cases through the world ... Pandemnix [Flu vaccine] triggered narcolepsy. ibid.
Remember the Swine Flu hype of 2009 … less people died during the Swine Flu scare that normally died during a normal flu season. The Corbett Report: Fit for Thee, Not for Me, Youtube 2017
In September 1918 40,000 soldiers were admitted to army hospitals oversees with flu. Then the disease started cropping up on the home front … By 2 October the epidemic was running wild. The Great War III, PBS 2017
With the help of thousands of volunteers we are about to simulate the outbreak of a fatal contagion throughout the UK. Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic, BBC 2018
In the last hundred years lethal strains of flu swept around the planet four times killing untold millions. ibid.
Spanish flu was a truly global contagion, a pandemic. ibid.
November 1918 Armistice Day: Around the world people celebrate the end of four long years of conflict. But there’s another horror unfolding in the shadow of war. A deadly virus sweeping the world. Schools and theatres are shut down. Coffins are piled high. The flu pandemic kills over fifty million people. Many of them die cruelly. The Flu That Killed 50 Million, BBC 2018
‘Another flu pandemic will happen.’ ibid. Professor Barclay
June 1918: Pandemic + 100 Days: 130 million infected in USA and Western Europe. 200,000 dead. ibid.
Only a small proportion of the people who were infected with this strain of flu died. ibid.
In September the flu virus returns and it’s mutated into an even more dangerous form … The virus kills more quickly and violently. ibid.
‘This blueness of the lips and ears was very obvious.’ ibid. Professor Barclay
October 1918: Pandemic + 210 Days: 1.4 million dead. The disease spreads worldwide. ibid.
July 1919: Pandemic +500 Days: Worldwide death toll: up to 100 million. ibid.
It took two years for the Spanish Flu to burn itself out. Panorama: Britain’s Coronavirus Gamble, BBC 2020
There is something mighty suspicious about declaring an emergency for something that has yet to show itself to be a grand pandemic. Billy Corgan, re Swine Flu 2009
‘People didn’t want to believe that they could be healthy in the morning and dead by nightfall.’ Secret History s6e5: Killer Flu, Channel 4 1998
It was the worst epidemic the world has ever known. It attacked over a billion people, more than half the world’s population. It killed an estimated forty million people. And yet it’s hardly remembered. ibid.
‘All the evidence points to this virus originating in the United States. But of course how can we be sure?’ ibid. Professor John Oxford
An autopsy revealed lungs that were swollen, filled with fluid and strangely blue. ibid.
As it spread through the trenches the virus mutated. ibid.
Folk remedies might have been no more than a comfort but doctors were just as useless. ibid.
People in the very prime of life from 21 to 29 were most vulnerable of all. ibid.
‘The elderly could have experienced the virus already.’ ibid. Professor Oxford
Soldiers were taking the flu with them all around the world. ibid.