As an historian, I’ve been re-reading the work of my colleagues re: the history of pandemics to gain some context for the current crisis. Right now, I am digging into Esyllt Jones’ book on the 1918-1919 pandemic influenza in Winnipeg. Can’t recommend this enough. 
So many interesting stories and insightful analysis in the book. I found this graph interesting, showing infections and deaths.
Jones argues that epidemics don’t affect the population equally, but is shaped by the contours of social inequality; it also spatially discriminates as shown in this graph map of the epidemic in Winnipeg, with the poor, immigrant North End hardest hit in 1918-1919.
I found this helpful, even hopeful (pg 64): "An epidemic represents a moment of maginality between life and death, between chaos and order; it is a border region where the meaning and membership in the community is imagined and re-imagined."
I'll add more to this thread as I finish the book, but wanted to share/document some of these thoughts for now.
For now, you can check out Jones's piece on Active History: activehistory.ca/2020/03/the-di…
