Girl Planting seeds

Why we should lift lockdown to help prepare for a more deadly winter second wave, writes health reporter

Back in November 1918, the San Francisco authorities thought they had beaten the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that had spread across the globe in only a matter of months. Infection levels in the city had peaked, then dwindled to apparent insignificance. At the centre of the city a whistle blew, signalling the official end of four weeks of lockdown. Thousands of people tore off their gauze face masks and trampled them as they poured into the streets. Bars and theatres threw open their doors. The revellers ignored official calls to retain those masks. Then a further wave of flu infections broke out that was far deadlier than what had come before. Ultimately, it left San Francisco with one of the highest death rates in the U.S. by the spring of 1919.  Read more.....



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