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The total number of UK Covid deaths has exceeded 150,000. Laura Spinney, author of Pale Rider, reviewed by Socialist Party general secretary Hannah Sell (see socialistparty.org.uk), stated the number of Spanish Flu deaths in Britain was 210,000. Not a great deal different from today’s pandemic mortality.

Furthermore, in the period of the Spanish Flu (1918-20), there was no vaccine discovery, because the current optical microscopes could not see the virus. And, during the pandemic’s most infective period (1918), it was spread worldwide primarily by World War One.

No such calamity has taken place during the Covid pandemic. However, its spread and persistence worldwide is largely due to US, UK and leading EU countries hoarding vaccines. By the end of last year, there were 1 billion unused vaccines.

A hundred years on from the Spanish Flu, capitalism, despite great advances in medical science and mass production of vaccines, has meant that millions of people worldwide have suffered and died needlessly.

John Merrell, Leicester Socialist Party