Guerre, grève et pandémie: La Suisse dans la Grippe / War, Strike, and Pandemic: Switzerland in the 1918

What do we really know about the most serious pandemic to hit modern Switzerland? The Spanish Flu of 1918, responsible for 25,000 deaths in Switzerland, remains to this day the worst-case scenario for public health policy. It struck as the First World War was drawing to a close and the domestic situation was deteriorating, culminating in the General Strike. During the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in Europe in the spring of 2020, the experience seems to be repeating itself: bans on gatherings, school closures, funerals without public attendance, overwhelmed hospitals, and the search for the pathogen and a vaccine. This book recounts the experience of the Spanish Flu in Switzerland, taking into account its political, social, and medical aspects. It explores how the country navigated the crisis and how it left a lasting mark on Swiss society. What are the links between the war, the strike, and the flu? How did the healthcare system cope with the pandemic, and how was it transformed by it? Why, while the General Strike is the subject of numerous commemorations, has the flu fallen into oblivion?