this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2021
11 points (92.3% liked)
COVID-19 Pandemic
1020 readers
16 users here now
Any news or discussion around the pandemic. Anti-vaccination posts and comments will be removed, as well as personal attacks.
Relevant:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I am just suspiscious of what govt does. I still don't know what kind of fear China put into politicians so that Chinese flu doesn't exist, but Indian variant does.
according to conventional wisdom, you shouldn't call it Indian variant just as you shouldn't call it Wuhan flu. it's delta variant and covid 19. there's no hypocrisy there. they (the WHO i guess) are being sensible and consistent.
so there's one less reason to be suspicious :)
Based sensible comment
You got it the wrong way. Conventional wisdom says it should be chinese flu, just like spanish flu. Delta variant and covid19 come from the current fashionable wisdom.
Spanish flu is conventionally called Influenza A.
I guess all this stuff is debatable. In historical discussions, you might use the more geographical names, but never in medicine. No-one ever gets diagnosed with Spanish flu these days.
Conventional name is spanish flu only. Hardly anyone knows that Spanish flu was a type of Influenza A, actually this remains debateable if it was indeed Influenza A.
People do get Influenza A today, but not Spanish flu.
have a look at the Wikipedia article. it was all explained quite clearly near the top. people get Spanish flu all the time, there are global epidemics every few years, but they call it influenza A H1N1, because that's the proper name.
That article makes it clear that H1N1 is a virus type and not a disease.
In terms of "disease" you would say you have a cold, or you have the flu. Disease as in a set of symptoms with common cause.
Or you talk in terms of "pathogen" you could say you have H1N1 or covid-19.
In terms of "symptoms" you could say you have a cough or a fever.
There is no context where you'd say you have spanish flu, or wuhan flu.
So those terms are neither correct nor common usage. Not in english anyway.
But TBH this is just a linguistic thing. I made much more interesting commentary in my other reply to you. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that one.
Spanish flu, is a flu. I don't see anything anywhere in any context that disputes this. Sure one can circle round and round all political correctness, but these things are so direct that the smallest voice in support easily withstands all the organized machinery doing global propaganda.