Northern England ‘worst hit’ by both Spanish flu, COVID-19 pandemics: Study

A recent study by Northern Health Sciences Alliance (NHSA) found that northern areas of England were most affected during the first wave of COVID-19 were also severely affected during the Spanish flu.

Spanish flu, which broke out in 1918, killed 50-100 million people globally.

As per the study, the northern suffered more than 12 COVID-19 related deaths per 100,000 compared to the rest of England.

Professor of Public Health at the University of Newcastle, Claire Bambra teamed up with other academics – including Dr. Paul Norman from the University of Leeds – to study the similarities in how two quite different epidemics affected areas of England.

She said that they looked at the day of the Spanish flu of 1918 and mapped to see what had happened in the different areas at the that time.

“We found that, like today with COVID-19, the northern regions of England and the Midlands had very high mortality rates from the Spanish flu.

“The lowest rates were in places like Surrey – around 200 deaths per 100,000 in 1918 – and the highest rates were up in places like Hebburn and Jarrow in the North East, where it was almost 1,200 deaths per 100,000,” she added.

“So six times more.”

The data was sourced from 1920 report about Spanish flu mortality rate compiled by the Registrar General.

It was too early to compare the cities affected by the Spanish flu and the areas most affected by coronavirus, said Prof Bambra, who has written a paper published in the journal Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space.

She said the same was true a century later, despite the creation of the welfare state and the NHS in the intervening time.

“COVID-19 rates are much lower across the whole of the country, thankfully, than the pandemic flu rates 100 years ago but we still find big differences,” she added.

Bambra said it was clear that Northern regions did worse in the 1918 outbreak and were doing worse in 2020 with COVID-19.