"Infinitely profitable!" What do the Spanish flu and covid pandemics have in common?

Alexander Chertkov

In the two years that have passed since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the disease has overgrown with many versions of its occurrence. And this is natural. After all, the number of cases is rapidly growing and is approaching 300 million people, and more than 5 million have already died, which makes the virus one of the deadliest in history. The number of deaths from coronavirus in the United States alone is approaching 900 thousand people, and this is already more than at the beginning of the last century died from the "Spanish flu" - about 675 thousand people. Humanity is scared and is trying to find the source of adversity or even intruders.

Versions, one more terrible than the other

In the meantime, covid waves continue to roll in one after another, and they see no end in sight. The Spanish flu, by the way, which, according to some rough estimates, claimed the lives of up to 100 million people, had only three waves and ended by itself. COVID, scientists say, will not do that - it mutates too easily and quickly.

The culprits of the pandemic were looked for in the animal kingdom, believing that the Chinese, who eat everything that moves and does not even move, except stones, could use carriers of the virus as a medicine or simply eat.

Then they remembered about the biological laboratory in the city of Wuhan, where, by the way, the pandemic began. WHO specialists checked the laboratory and ruled out the possibility of a leak, again attributing the blame to the animal world.

Then the version of the targeted spread of the virus was used. Some said that the CIA was behind the sabotage, trying in this way to slow down the growth of the economic and international influence of the PRC. They miscalculated - at first, virologists noted a certain addiction of the virus to Asians.

Others hinted at a world conspiracy to reduce the exorbitant population of the planet, and for one, to reduce the burden of pensions and other social benefits of states.

From the two aforementioned versions of the conspiracy against humanity, the belief that the virus is man-made has grown. In support of this conclusion, his supporters make a genetic argument. They say that in the genome of SARS-CoV-2 there is a certain region that could not appear naturally. It makes the virus more infectious and deadly to humans than the Spanish flu.

Similarities between Spanish flu and Covid-19

Incidentally, the Spanish flu and the coronavirus have some similarities. They were pointed out, in particular, by the chief infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Health of Russia, Professor Vladimir Chulanov. The "Spanish flu" and the coronavirus are characterized by pneumonia with severe suffocation and a "cytokine storm" - a violent immune response to the virus. In the lungs, inflammation occurs and fluid accumulates. Some sources also say that in patients with "Spanish flu" in the later stages, the virus caused intrapulmonary bleeding. The patients literally choked on their own blood.

The Spanish flu analogy is reminiscent of the history of a pandemic that some analysts believe was not of natural origin. True, in 1997, Johan Hultin and Jeffrey Taubenberger, it seems, isolated the Spanish flu virus from the corpse of a woman who died from it in 1918. She lived in the town of Brevig Mission, Alaska, where 72 out of 80 residents died of influenza. Scientists found that the Spanish flu virus was of the H1N1 flu serotype.

In 2007, Japanese scientists conducted an experiment. They infected the Spanish flu virus with macaques. Symptoms in sick monkeys were similar to the classic "Spanish flu", which were carefully described by doctors at the beginning of the last century. The animals died from a cytokine storm - they were killed by their own immune system.

In 2009, a virus of the same serotype H1N1 caused the "swine flu" pandemic.

To object to scientific arguments, of course, is very difficult, practically pointless, but a person is not a logical being. For the most part, people tend to see secrets in everything and fight over their clues until the mind is completely darkened. Sometimes our suspicions, it must be admitted, are not unfounded. And the history of the "Spanish flu", frankly, does not allow the version of the likelihood of a man-made origin of a covid pandemic to die out.

The Spanish flu came from the United States, not Spain.

Although the flu of the beginning of the last century was called "Spanish flu", in fact, it appeared in the United States, or rather, on the territory of the Fort Riley military base and the Funston camp in Kansas. This was established by the American historian and specialist in biological and epidemiological history, Alfred Crosby. He even mentioned the name of "patient zero" - the chef Albert Gitchell. He fell ill with Spanish flu on March 4, 1918.

The Spaniards were the first to officially announce multiple cases of diseases and therefore they called the disease "Spanish flu", but in fact it is "American". All other countries participating in the First World War, kept secrecy. The military censorship did not allow messages about the epidemic that began in the army and among the population.

American scientists and public figures Eleanor McBean and Kevin Barry are also convinced that it was the American military who, after the US entered the war, arrived in Europe to spread the disease. In the spring, the evil "bacillus" spread to France, Switzerland, Spain, Great Britain and a number of other European countries. By early summer, she reached the borders of Russia and invaded its western borders.

In some countries, the incidence ranged from 20 to 80% of the population. Three waves of the epidemic were recorded, the second turned out to be the most catastrophic. The third wave did not reach Russia. However, typhoid fever, cholera and tuberculosis caused much greater misfortune in our country during the Civil War.

In some countries, because of the Spanish flu, courts, schools and churches did not work for a whole year. Theaters did not stage plays, cinemas closed their doors. Stores worked on order - buyers were not allowed into the premises, and the ordered goods were taken out into the street. In the town of Prescott, Arizona, the authorities have officially banned the handshake. Social and political life was, one might say, paralyzed.

Was the "Spanish flu" the flu?

In 2018, the centenary of the Spanish flu pandemic, the US National Institutes of Health published the results of its own study. Scientists, having studied archival materials, came to the conclusion that in the case of the "Spanish flu" we are not talking about the flu virus at all. Doctors studied the records of autopsies carried out at the beginning of the last century of people who died from "Spanish flu", and in 93% of cases the diagnosis was "bacterial pneumonia".

In turn, Kevin Barry, who studied everything that was associated with the "Spanish flu", came to the conclusion that it was created at the Institute for Medical Research, founded in 1901 by millionaire John Rockefeller. The institute's specialists were fascinated by the idea of fighting dangerous diseases by vaccination. They were encouraged by the successful experience of the English physician Edward Anthony Jenner, who at the end of the 18th century managed to fight smallpox. He observed the milkmaids in England and noticed that smallpox bypassed them. On reflection, he used the cowpox virus, which is harmless to humans, for inoculation.

The Rockefeller Institute used horse blood to create vaccines, probably believing that this animal is strong and will turn any virus or microbe into a useful vaccine. One of the topics of scientific research was the search for ways to defeat meningococci. Scientists worried about the importance of the problem, Rockefeller - the profitability of his venture.

By 1918, a certain drug had been created. It was produced in huge quantities and sold to the military department. Tests were carried out on military personnel, in particular at Fort Riley. They also began to develop acute forms of bacterial pneumonia, which the soldiers brought to the European front.

Moreover, the American government sold the vaccine to its allies in Europe. There, too, they began to stab the soldiers with the good purpose of preventing meningitis, but the "Spanish flu" broke out. The connection between the vaccine and the "Spanish flu" did not appear in anyone's head.

After the end of the First World War, the remains of the vaccine were released into civilian circulation in the United States.

As established by researchers at the US National Institutes of Health, from the "Spanish flu" mostly died vaccinated.

The epidemic as a profitable business

This is how John Rockefeller, in fact, became the founder of Bigpharm. Chemical and biological compounds created by pharmacists have come to replace natural drugs, which have shown themselves to be very effective.

Today it is a highly profitable business, which, according to Doctor of Medical Sciences Dmitry Yedelev, annually brings its owners $ 100 billion on vaccines alone, including Covid. Various medicines give up to 500 billion more. Rockefeller for the organized "Spanish flu", in which he is now suspected, received clearly less. But he saw a great and profitable future for the business he had started.

Plus, according to a tweet by Israeli therapist Rafael Zioni, sheer vaccination is not living up to expectations. According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, a doctor cited, in the week from July 4-11, the proportion of those infected among fully vaccinated adult citizens of this Middle Eastern state was 85%. "It looks like the effectiveness is close to zero," the doctor wrote. In this case, Bigpharm is infinitely profitable.