The Shanghai Shivers

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by BlueVape
image showing The Shanghai Shivers

seeyouspacecowboyx on March 22nd, 2020 at 17:34 UTC »

It's known as Spanish flu because Spain, being neutral in the first world war, wasn't censoring their press. In Spain people were freer to report on it than the countries that had the virus already, where governments were controlling the press more to keep morale up.

You could call it the 1918 pandemic. I think that virus was an H1N1?

adriangalli on March 22nd, 2020 at 17:52 UTC »

The WHO and others have stopped naming viruses after places. For example, Karl Johnson of the CDC and leader of the Ebola research team suggested it be named after the river to ease the emphasis on the village of Yambuku where it originally was discovered. Read: to prevent stigmatizing the location and people. I guarantee that naming it “Chinese Virus” will give at least one person the excuse to discriminate, harass, bully, or even attack someone of Asian origins.

Either way, the name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2 and the disease is COVID-19. We need not discuss it further.

Also, Spanish flu was named over a century ago in an era of all sorts of regularly use derogatory terms. And it is a misnomer. It originated, most likely, in the United States so more appropriately name “American Flu” by the naming convention of location.

Wonger94 on March 22nd, 2020 at 17:57 UTC »

The Spanish flu was named after the Spanish because the Spanish media was the first to public ally report on the virus.

COVID—19 already has two names so making up a new name for it only serves to villianize an entire race of people that has already experienced racism due to the virus.