Interview with John M. Barry, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Great Influenza"

In Episode 12 of Dr. Dave On Call, we interview New York Times best-selling author, John M. Barry. We discuss his book about the 1918 Influenza pandemic and its parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Barry's 2004 book, entitled, "The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history", is a vivid and frightening account of the emergence, transmission and control of the 1918 influenza pandemic. It is estimated that an upward of 100 million people in the world died from influenza during the pandemic, 65 million people died in the United States.

The 1918 influenza pandemic has relevant parallels to the current COVID-19 pandemic-it was a novel virus that affected the entire world. Currently, only a small percentage of people in the world have immunity to COVID-19, which leaves the majority of the world's population at risk for exposure and infection.

We discuss Mr. Barry's detailed historical account of the evolution of the influenza pandemic and how it provides insight into a possible COVID-19 2nd wave of infections. The explosion of scientific discoveries during the 1918 pandemic has a similar parallel to our current desire for COVID-19 therapeutic and vaccine discoveries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced our society to engage in extensive mitigation behaviors that has caused our world's economy plunge into a global recession. The subsequent political climate has been extremely tense, similar to the 1918-19 environment. Moreover, as countries and US states are pressured into reopening to preserve economic viability, COVID-19 cases continue to worsen. With the recent social justice protests throughout the world, health and government officials are on edge for outbreaks to occur. All of these current situations represent an eerily similarity to the 1918 influenza pandemic.

John Barry's historical insight into the 1918-19 influenza pandemic provides a scholarly opinion on the parallels and future direction of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More questions, please visit us: https://drdaveoncall.com

Email us: hello@drdaveoncall.com

Tweet us: https://twitter.com/drdaveoncall

Call us and leave us a voicemail: 1-877-DrDave5