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Laura Spinney: What Does The 1918 Flu Teach Us About Our Response To Pandemics?

Laura Spinney

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Inoculation

About Laura Spinney's Segment:

A century after the 1918 flu, we see similar patterns in the ways we're responding to COVID-19. Laura Spinney reflects on the Spanish flu and how societies learn to move forward after pandemics.

About Laura Spinney:

Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of several books. Her latest non-fiction title is Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World. In the book, Spinney examines the enduring effects of this pandemic flu and society's response—how they altered global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion, and the arts.

As a journalist, she has written for National Geographic, The Economist, The Atlantic, Nature, and New Scientist among others. She holds a B.S. in Natural Sciences from Durham University, in the UK.

This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Katie Monteleone and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Twitter @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadio@npr.org.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Manoush Zomorodi
Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.
Katie Monteleone
Katie Monteleone is a producer for TED Radio Hour. She started out as an intern for the show in January 2019. After her internship, Monteleone began producing for Life Kit before returning to the TED Radio Hour team in October 2019 as a full-time producer.
Sanaz Meshkinpour