Disrupting everyday life: influenza, and COVID-19 in Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina (1918-2020)

Abstract

When in 2020 the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 an international public health emergency, health ministers in many countries called on the population to stay at home or established other control measures. This scenario led to new forms of social interaction; the world changed significantly: distance education and remote work, together with the interruption of economic and cultural activities considered “non-essential”, and even the ways of greeting, washing hands and sneezing were transformed. This generated an alteration in everyday life and led to what was called a “new normality”. Faced with this dramatic situation arises the problem of how to understand this transition from what was a normality to what was called a new one.

The book Normalidad transformada por la influenza y la COVID-19 en México, Cuba y Argentina offers examples of how everyday life and society changed with the arrival of new viruses. The work, published in 2024, includes in its 360 pages thirteen contributions divided into three sections: “The ‘Spanish’ flu of 1918–1919. Case studies and health interventions”; “Other influenza pandemics: from the Mao flu to swine flu”; and “Living the complexity of COVID-19. Between the new normality and the challenges ahead”.