Costa Rica: Two pandemics in one century

Abstract

This text aims to compare two pandemics experienced in Costa Rica in the last century: the so-called “Spanish flu” in 1920 and that of COVID 19 in 2020. By following up on the little that has been written about the 1920 disease and the abundant information emanating from what is suffered in 2020, the differences and similarities in the manifestations of evil are extracted, the measures taken by the governments and the results obtained are investigated. Both show a categorical similarity in all fields, including in the behavior of people, but the differences are also evident: it is another situation with more advanced knowledge but forming part of a globalized world that makes it more difficult to control the virus. As a result of the pandemics, thousands of people died and, in both cases, the economic crisis worsened with the resulting sociopolitical consequences.