Four pandemics: lessons learned, lessons lost

Abstract

In the past 100 years, the world has faced four distinctly different pandemics: the Spanish flu of 1918-1919, the SARS pandemic of 2003, the H1N1 or “swine flu” pandemic of 2012, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Each public health crisis exposed specific systemic shortfalls and provided public health lessons for future events. The Spanish flu revealed a nursing shortage and led to a great appreciation of nursing as a profession. SARS showed the importance of having frontline clinicians be able to work with regulators and those producing guidelines. H1N1 raised questions about the nature of a global organization such as the World Health Organization in terms of the benefits and potential disadvantages of leading the fight against a long-term global public health threat. In the era of COVID-19, it seems apparent that we are learning about both the blessing and curse of social media.

The lessons learned working in diagnostic and therapeutic radiography departments through the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern Ireland, UK. What can we do differently the next time?

“…2 However, COVID-19 was not the first pandemic, following the Spanish flu in 1918, Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and H1N1 or "swine flu" in 2012. 3 Experience of managing these pandemics led to the development of a global network of laboratories linked to the World Influenza Research Centre in London in 1957, which acted as a research hub for virus tracking. 4 Despite better virus tracking vigilance and communication systems than in previous pandemics, it took only three months for the COVID-19 epidemic, first recognised in China, to spread across the globe.…”