(1)Five hundred million people, in other words the third part of the entire world's population, were infected and fell ill.
The "Spanish" influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, which caused approximately 50 million deaths worldwide, remains an ominous warning to public health. The disease was exceptionally severe.
(2) The president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson that time, caught the flu— and so did future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Wilson felt bad during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, he was negotiating the future path for the world after World War I. If he'd died during this times, it would have dramatically changed the future of many states. Wilson's daughter Margaret and much of his staff also got sick. Roosevelt — then the assistant secretary of the Navy — was infected while on a voyage to France aboard the USS Leviathan. Roosevelt survived the flu after being returned home to the States.
(3) The pandemic came to be known as the "Spanish flu," but it didn't actually start in Spain.
When the flu first hit Europe in early 1918, it spread throughout military camps on both sides of World War I. Even if it was going fast, governments involved in the war kept it a secret because they feared that acknowledging their troops were sick could help the enemy.
That's where Spain highlighted. Since it was a neutral country, it had no need to keep secrets when its people got sick, so the Spanish government and media reported what was happening.
(4)No one actually knows where the virus started. For decades, scientists have debated where in the world the pandemic started, variously pinpointing its origins in France, China, the American Midwest, and beyond. The Spanish flu reached its height in autumn 1918 but raged until 1920.
(5)People who catched the flu felt severe fatigue, fever, and headaches. Many also suffered from a cough so severe they would turn blue, tear abdominal muscles from coughing, and bleed from the mouth, nose, and sometimes ears.
The disease, which came to be known as the Spanish flu, hit the young and healthy, with many victims dying within hours or a couple days after the symptoms began.
These life hacks only create the appearance of protection.
1. Follow the rule of 5 seconds
Legend has it: if food fell to the floor, but a piece was lifted earlier than 5 seconds later, you can safely eat it. Because microorganisms are not so nimble and will not have time to crawl onto your sandwich or apple in such a short time.
2. Touch the door handle through the sleeve
The very idea - to create a barrier between your skin and a potentially contaminated surface - is very correct. But using your own clothes for this is not the best option. The dirt, bacteria, and viruses that were on the doorknob end up on your sleeve and then calmly contact your wrists and palms, face, hair, phone, bag, and so on.
3. Press the elevator button with your elbow or knuckle
Here is almost the same story as in the previous paragraph. It just seems that we don’t touch anything and that microbes from buttons, handles and doors cannot harm us. But, for example, the strap of a bag or a pocket of clothes is easy to touch with your elbows, and we also put them on the table, and then touch it with our hands.
With knuckles, dirt and microorganisms easily fall into the palms and face - when a person clenches his hands into fists, twists his fingers, props his chin, rubs one hand on the other, and so on.
4. Hold your breath when someone sneezes or coughs nearby.
From infection (if someone sneezing is sick with something) this will not save you. Firstly, you just won’t have time to hold your breath fast enough - and the smallest drops of saliva and sputum will still fall into your airways (yes, it sounds very disgusting, but alas, it is).
5. Wipe the surface with an antibacterial wipe
This only works if you use a new cloth for each surface. And if you wipe the same table, door handles, switches and buttons, then simply transfer microorganisms from one object to another. After all, the longer you use a napkin, the less antibacterial agents remain on it - and microbes have more chances to survive.
6. Constantly smear hands with an antiseptic
The sanitizer seems to be a universal and 100 percent remedy. He rubbed his hands, sprayed everything that was possible - and you sit "in the house." But antiseptics work only when they are used correctly.
A report from Wuhan cut off from the world, the story of the fight against the Ebola virus, memories of the Spanish epidemic and other educational projects.
Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak
At the beginning of the year, when coronavirus was not yet widely publicized, Pandemic appeared on Netflix - a six-part project dedicated to the global cause of the fight against viruses and, in fact, summarizing many documentaries from this collection. Its creators methodically analyze the process of the emergence of new strains; answer why it usually happens in poor countries and how some infections spread through animals.
American Experience: Influenza 1918
The history of the spread of coronavirus is often compared with the events of a hundred years ago. Then, in a world not yet recovering from World War I, an epidemic of Spanish flu was raging. The episode of the cult documentary series American Adventure is dedicated to her.
We Heard the Bells: the Influenza of 1918
This movie is also dedicated to the well known 1918 epidemic. But this is not an attempt to recreate the events of a century ago, but rather the desire to reflect them. The main characters are old people from different parts of the USA who, as children, became eyewitnesses of the spread of the disease. They recall how they did not believe that the Spaniard would touch them, how they had faced the death of relatives and friends, how they were ill themselves - and after that they had a long biased attitude, because other people were afraid that they would infect them too. According to many heroes of the movie, the events of those years became the most terrible memories in life.
The Lockdown: One Month in Wuhan
A documentary project about life in the famous city of Wuhan during its complete isolation. At the beginning of 2020, 11 million people remained on their own at the epicenter of the spread of coronavirus. The main characters are doctors, officials and ordinary citizens, who were able to organize themselves in the face of the disease.
How to Survive a Plague
Contrary to the name, this movies is not a training manual on what to do in the event of a “black death” pandemic. We are talking about HIV and AIDS - diseases that they preferred to remain silent about until a certain time - but somewhere they are still silent today.
Fire in the Blood
If treating HIV-infected people in America is a difficult but solvable problem, then in Africa it is almost impossible. The fact is that many pharmaceutical giants refuse to voluntarily supply medicines necessary for antiretroviral therapy to poor countries. Because of this, dozens of people who are unable to receive treatment die every day.
Why Do Viruses Kill?
Of all the projects on the list, this is perhaps the least optimistic. The movie was released 10 years ago after the swine flu pandemic, which killed some 18,000 people. Then it became obvious that we are still powerless in front of some of the creatures of nature and that modern science is not fully aware of the mechanisms of the emergence of new strains. "Why are viruses killing?" introduces us to the device of viruses and answers the question why, even today, scientists cannot stop their spread in time.
Hero with a Thousand Faces
From 2014 to 2016, a disease was raging in West Africa, killing more than 11,000 people. But this movie is not about how quickly Ebola destroys a person from the inside, but about people who are fighting an epidemic. The focus of the crew going to Sierra Leone is doctors and volunteers risking their lives.
Mosquito
Speaking of Ebola and other viral diseases, one can not help but talk about other human enemies. We have long been accustomed to them and often do not even take them seriously, but they very often carry deadly infectious diseases. That's right, we are talking about mosquitoes. The movie contains a fascinating and consistent story about how they reproduce, what they feed on and for what global epidemics these seemingly harmless insects are responsible.
Coronavirus: Explained
The most relevant project on the list. This is the new season of the Explained documentary series, whose authors in half-hourly videos answer simple questions about health, sex, politics and economics in simple language. One of the episodes of last season was devoted to epidemics - in it, Bill Gates and a team of visiting doctors discussed the likelihood that a new pandemic will happen in the next decade. Alas, their predictions came true even faster.
The first dates according to TASS, a study by Hong Kong researchers shows that the ideal temperature for the development and spread of the new coronavirus is 4 degrees Celsius, under these conditions it can withstand the most. However, at 22 degrees, the new coronavirus remains active for one week, while at 37 degrees, the virus becomes inactive within two days. At 70 degrees Celsius, the virus dies in less than five minutes.
The recent dates are established by scientists from France who published a report indicating the temperature at which the coronavirus dies. As it turned out, inactivation is possible only at 92 ° C, subject to exposure for 15 minutes.
Initially, it was assumed that heating to 60 ° C for an hour would be sufficient. However, during the study it turned out: with this effect, the activity of the virus decreases by 6 times, but some strains still survive.
Evaluation of heating and chemical protocols for inactivating coronavirus scientists published on bioRXV portal in the form of a preliminary report (the so-called preprint). The conclusions made are for informational purposes only and require additional checks.
Earlier, other studies showed that different types of coronaviruses can live in the refrigerator for up to 9 days, and in the freezer they can exist for years.
Why do some healthy young people die from coronavirus? The specialists have two explanations
Covid-19 "attacks" the most powerful of the elderly, but even young and apparently healthy people do not get rid of coronavirus. The news about the death of some adolescents, young people without previously diagnosed health problems has shocked us in recent weeks. Why do some healthy, young people die from the new coronavirus? The specialists have two explanations, which will be deepened by thorough research.
It remains one of the biggest mysteries of the current Covid-19 pandemic. In general, the disease causes severe complications to people past the age of 65 and those with certain conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure or obesity. However, there were also casualties among young people without health problems, including among medical personnel. In some cases, after the death, certain conditions with which the victim had not been diagnosed, in other words, was not known to be sick.
The researchers are facing this huge challenge, to discover the cause of the strange behavior of the coronavirus. Several theories have already been put forward. Some researchers believe that the amount of virus we are infected with is extremely important: we have been exposed directly and strongly, the complications can be serious. "A person with a high viral load has more virus particles than a small virus," says virusologist Alison Sinclair of Sussex University.
"We still do not know what the impact of viral load is on the symptoms of a person infected with Covid-19. It will be important to find out if there is a link between large viral loads and serious cases, ”added Sinclair.
In addition, the first data from China suggest that viral load is higher in patients with a more severe form of the disease, as is the case with SARS and influenza.
But other researchers argue that the main explanation lies in genes. Some of us are simply genetically predisposed to develop the most serious forms of Covid-19. Virology expert Michael Skinner from Imperial College in London explained, quoted by the Guardian: "It is quite possible that some of us may have a genetic particularity that will make us react much worse when we are infected with coronavirus."
"It may be a similar sensitivity of some people with Covid-19, and this makes them more acute due to serious side effects," Skinner added.
An example of such sensitivity is given by the herpes simplex virus. In some people, a genetic mutation that affects TLR3 cell receptors in the central nervous system makes them unable to react to the worst stroke of the virus, so they make a disease called herpex simplex encephalitis that can lead to seizures.
Police in Hague detained about 400 people on Sunday after refusing to leave an organized protest to challenge the social deterrence measures imposed by the authorities to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
Several thousand protesters gathered in the Malieveld area of Hague, near the seat of the Dutch government, even though the assembly had been banned by the authorities.
"I detained about 400 people today. Many of them have since been released, "police said on Twitter.
Authorities allowed a brief protest in the afternoon before asking protesters to leave.
Protesters wore T-shirts marked "Stop Restrictions" and had placards calling for the rule to keep people 1.5 meters apart from being removed.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck.
The mayor of Hague, Johan Remkes, said the demonstration was banned because authorities had information that "troublemakers" from across the Netherlands, including groups of hooligans at football matches, intended to come to The Hague.
"This has nothing to do with the right to protest or freedom of expression. This group deliberately intended to disturb public order, "Remkes said in a statement.