Spanish flu and coronavirus in argentina: Reading the past and understanding the present

Abstract

This article compares the scenarios generated in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 and covid-19 in Argentina. It analyzes governmental policies and structural imbalances in the earlier pandemic based on case studies of the city of Buenos Aires and the province of Salta. It then studies those same topics for the covid-19 pandemic. It describes national policies and analyzes the province of Jujuy, where the health care system was overwhelmed. It concludes that in order to manage the pandemic it is necessary to create consensus policies to solve the structural imbalanaces in the country.