The Spanish Flu: how the pandemic of 1918 compares to COVID-19

By Karen Richardson

To The Haldimand Press

The 1918 influenza pandemic, also known as the Spanish Flu, killed more than 50 million people worldwide, including nearly 50,000 Canadians, most of whom were young adults between the ages of 20 and 40. 

In the autumn of 1918, the first civilian cases of the Spanish Flu were reported in Canada. Not long after, the Spanish Flu had reached Haldimand County after it was carried home by soldiers returning from war.