Laura Spinney: What Does The 1918 Flu Teach Us About Our Response To Pandemics?

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Making Sense of 2020

A century after the 1918 flu, we see similar patterns in the ways we've responded to COVID-19. Laura Spinney reflects on the Spanish flu and how societies learn to move forward after pandemics. A version of this segment was originally heard in the episode, Inoculation.

About Laura Spinney

Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of several books. Her latest non-fiction title is "Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World." In the book, Spinney examines the enduring effects of this pandemic flu and society's response—how they altered global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion, and the arts.

As a journalist, she has written for National Geographic, The Economist, The Atlantic, Nature, and New Scientist among others. She holds a B.S. in Natural Sciences from Durham University, in the UK. [Copyright 2020 NPR]