1918 Spanish f lu epidemic ended WWII, claims Trump!
DONALD Trump may need to go back to history class after claiming the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 ended the Second World War.
The US President raised eyebrows during a press conference at the White House where he got his dates askew while discussing the precedent for global pandemics.
‘The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100million people,’ Mr Trump said.
‘Probably ended the Second World War. All the soldiers were sick. That was a terrible situation.’
The Spanish Flu arrived a year after Mr Trump claimed, in 1918, and lasted until 1920. A White House official later said the President misspoke and had, in fact, been referring to the First World War, which began in 1914 and ended in November 1918, six months after the pandemic began.
During the war, Spanish Flu claimed thousands of lives, affecting all sides.
By 1920 it had infected some 500million people – around a third of the world’s population at the time – with more than 50million casualties, far outstripping deaths in the four years of fighting.
Experts Peter C Wever and Leo van Bergen, however, were reluctant to link the pandemic with the end of the First World War.
‘It struck all the armies and might have claimed toward 100,000 fatalities among soldiers overall during the conflict while rendering millions ineffective,’ the pair wrote in a paper published in the Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses journal.
‘Yet, it remains unclear whether 1918 pandemic influenza had an impact on the course of the First World War.’
It was the second recent mix-up from the President, who pronounced Thailand as ‘Thighland’ during a speech at a factory last week.
Mr Trump’s latest muddle came after his press conference was interrupted by secret service staff who quickly ushered him out of the room to the safety of the Oval Office mid-sentence.
They were responding to a threat from an armed man outside the White House. The 51-year-old suspect ‘moved aggressively toward an officer, and appeared ready to fire before the officer shot him once,’ the secret service said.
A bodyguard abruptly interrupted the President as he spoke to reporters, saying in a quiet voice: ‘Sir, could you please come with me?’
Mr Trump and his staff members left.
Outside, black-clad agents with automatic rifles could be seen rushing across the lawn and took up positions behind trees. Around nine minutes later, Mr Trump reappeared at the press conference. ‘Law enforcement shot someone, it seems to be the suspect. And the suspect is on the way to the hospital,’ he said.
In his bid to battle the coronavirus, Mr Trump is reportedly looking at blocking US citizens from returning home from abroad with the virus.
‘Suspect on the way to hospital’