anyone who cites spanish flu as a reason to call covid-19 chinese flu betrays their abject ignorance of how spanish flu got its name. https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1248883434396610560

at the time the flu broke out, the first world war was still raging. the major players in the war knew about the enormous effects of the epidemic at the time. the first recorded case spanish flu was in kansas, usa. it killed more u.s. soldiers than the war did.

the authorities of eacvh of the major players in ww1 were worried about the effects that reporting a plague during this unprecedented global conflict would have. so they silenced their respective presses from reporting it.

but spain was neutral during the war. so its press was allowed to report on the disease and its impact. so for all intents and purposes it looked like spain was the origin and epicentre of the disease. even though it wasn't.

so when ghouls try to 'well-what-about-spanish-flu' you, just tell them they don't know what they're talking about. not that they'll care. they're just repeating asinine lines for political reasons. they have no interest in reality.

this is one of the reasons that the WHO implemented new guidelines on naming diseases a few years ago. it helps to remove the biases, the falsehoods, the politics and prejudice and stigma that can come with naming a disease after a place.

here's a good documentary on the spanish flu that depicts the absolute medieval-level horror of it. puts covid into perspective.

it would also be good for bill to explain exactly how calling something zika or ebola helps anyone to know where those viruses originated. surely they should be called uganda virus and democratic-republic-of-the-congo-formerly-known-as-zaire virus, respectively?

i mean, who the fuck is supposed to know that lyme disease is named after a town, while zika is named after a forest, but weil's disease is named after a person? how is any of that helpful in real terms?

bill maher, seconds after getting a fact wrong: "this is about facts."