The coronavirus outbreak allows us to establish a certain analogy with a disease that - in its most virulent stage - has caused the largest number of deaths during the 20th century. This virus, known as the Spanish flu, has also sparked multiple initiatives on health and responses in different spheres and social scales. It would have begun to develop in Texas (United States) and with the movement of troops during the Great War it spread to Europe. Later - during 1918 and 1919 - it reached all corners of the world and its impact in terms of mortality on a global scale was devastating: it is estimated that between 30 and 50 million people would have died, with some estimates reaching up to 100 million.
In these epidemiological transition, we invite readers to analyse the role of the press, public policies, attacks on the governments, medical discussions, marketing and others facts that the Spanish flu brought with it more than a hundred years ago and so does today, in its own way, the coronavirus.