This may be splitting hairs, but I don't remember Boris Pasternak referencing

[no_hypocrisy]

the Spanish Flu/Influenza Pandemic 1918 to 1920 in "Dr. Zhivago." That would have made for a subplot by itself.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I read that book a very long time ago, but I think you're right.

What's actually so interesting about the Spanish Flu is that it almost totally disappeared from public awareness almost as soon as the last wave ended. It is almost never referenced in novels that take place then, or even in any kind of non-fiction about that time, other than the books about that flu pandemic specifically.

I can tell you that fifty years ago (I'm 71) I was just barely aware of the Spanish Flu, and I'm someone who always loved history and epidemiology.

It's as if there was a collective and deliberate forgetting.

People are a lot more aware of it right now because it is constantly being mentioned and being compared to Covid-19. The comparison is valid in that they are both true world-wide pandemics. And there may well be two or more waves of it. We are still so early in this thing that it's impossible to guess how it will play out.