I hear and read a lot about “getting back to normal” now that the pandemic is over, writes James Williams. Yet, in my mind the pandemic isn’t over, we are managing it as the virus mutates. There are still new variations and these cause outbreaks.

As for normal, what exactly do we mean by that? Returning to where we were in late 2019 early 2020? Unless someone has created a time machine those days have gone. Society has changed, the world has changed and world politics has also moved on.

Over 100 years ago the world suffered a war, dubbed the war to end all wars, followed by a flu pandemic that killed more people than the war itself. It was estimated that between 50 and 100 million people worldwide died from the worst ever recorded pandemic and 228,000 died in the UK alone. This was the first time deaths outstripped births in Britain. While it is said that this deadly pandemic lasted for two years, in reality outbreaks of strains of the 1918 flu virus were still being recorded in the mid-1920s.

We also have to remember that in the 1920s much less was known about viruses. Many, including doctors thought of flu as being caused by a bacterium, but the era of antibiotics was still 20 years or so away. Even though vaccination, for example against smallpox, was available there were limited flu vaccines and they were not in general use.

It was a widespread belief also that illnesses such as flu could be caused by miasma more commonly known as “bad air” or even an “ill wind”.

An interesting aspect of the 1918 pandemic was how society reacted to such a major health issue coming just as a major world war had ended.

Unlike today, when there were regular government briefings and a concerted effort by researchers, scientists and medical professionals to provide the best preventative measures possible, such a response didn’t happen in 1918.

The priority was dealing with the large numbers of injured soldiers.

Many medically trained doctors and nurses were not even in the UK as they had been sent to the battlefields of Europe.

Today the Covid-19 pandemic was seen by many as an attack on us and on society, but in 1918 such a narrative was not in place – the references to a war on the virus or an attack on people didn’t happen, indeed it wouldn’t have worked given people’s real experiences of an actual war and the mass killing of young soldiers on the battlefields and in the trenches.

Flu was something that people took for granted and they simply carried on as normal.

In the early 20th century there was no government ministry that oversaw public health. So one consequence of the pandemic of 1918 was the creation on the Ministry for Health.

Another issue caused by the pandemic was the problem of burial of the victims. There was, due to the war, an acute shortage of grave diggers. Many were drafted into the forces and their skills in digging were crucial for creating the trenches. Funeral directors were overloaded also with requests for their services. Carpenters were in short supply and even horses commonly used for pulling hearses had been sent overseas for the war effort.

Unlike today, there is no public memorial for the victims of the 1918 flu pandemic in the UK.

It’s thought that people did not have an outpouring of public grief for the victims. There were, however, many memorials to the victims of the war in virtually every town, city and village. The war dead took what public grief there was.

The closest we have to a memorial for the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic is the national Covid memorial wall in London. This is a public mural of 220,000 red hearts, many with names and dates.

Although the number of deaths is similar to the 1918 pandemic, as a proportion of the population in 1918 it was much greater.

We’ve also benefited from a more co-ordinated national response to Covid-19 and from a greater understanding of how the virus was spread and how to develop vaccinations to help protect people against the virus.

Paradoxically, the war in 1918 also contributed to the spread of the flu virus.

Although it was commonly called Spanish Flu it is now thought that US troop movements were the origin of the spread of the virus. At some points up 40 per cent of US troops had the virus and the death rate was much higher than you would expect from a normal flu infection.

Despite that the troops were deployed overseas allowing the virus to spread.

Dr James Williams is a senior lecturer in education at the University of Sussex