The virus that caused the death of 50-60 thousand young Hungarians: the Spanish flu

Hungarian newspapers lied about the virus

even in September 1918 when people already died in masses in, for example, Budapest. A pro-government newspaper still wrote in September that it was just normal flu and there was no direct link between the virus and the many deaths caused by pneumonia.

When schools closed in September and October, already thousands were dead, and tens of thousands were in hospitals while most of the doctors were still on the fronts. Cinemas and dancing schools struggled to avoid closure because authorities wanted to make all events cease that involved many people filling small rooms. The virus’s rampage seemed to stop by the end of October, but it returned in November after the Aster Revolution won.

The Guardian says that even the 55-year-old British prime minister, Lloyd George, struggled for days with the virus, but he managed to survive. Most of those who caught it in Hungary were not that lucky, and the virus

was the most devastating among 20-40-year-olds.

That is because its type was new, and most of the younger generation had not met it. On the other hand, their parents and grandparents had done so at the end of the 19th century, so they developed some sort of immunity against it.

First, it happened on February 21, 1919, that nobody died from the Spanish flu in Hungary, so the epidemic took more than 6 months to die off, but it returned afterwards, for example, in 1927. Globally, 50-100 million people died from the Spanish flu.