18 The legacy of the Spanish Flu pandemic
By the end of the year 1920, the Spanish Flu pandemic appeared to have finally faded away. Memory of the global disaster faded with it. During its height, media coverage was limited and what was present was for the most part localized, rather than covering the disease as it spread around the globe. With the end of the World War, once the flu had passed through one’s community, citizens wanted to get on with their normal lives. In the United States, the issue of Prohibition and the decade which became known as the Roaring Twenties moved to the fore. The flu which had ravaged the country became just another of the epidemics which were at the time a part of life. The world merely shrugged it off and moved forward.
Because of its coinciding with the Great War, as it was known at the time (it wouldn’t become known as World War I until the name World War II was coined), the overall impact on the public psyche in most countries was limited. With the majority of its fatalities among healthy young men, as with the war, it came to be considered a part of the war, a view especially prevalent in Europe. Its impact in Asia and the Pacific was relatively unknown to the great majority of people who were not in some manner connected to those regions. The same can be said about its impact in Africa. Not until the late 20th century, when public awareness of bird flu and other forms of influenza virus increased, was the Spanish Flu Pandemic brought to the public consciousness.