Status Updates From Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness A...

But chiefly I thought of the very strange look on all faces in that camp; an incomprehensible look, which a man will never see in England, though wars should be in England; nor can it be seen in any battle. But only in Étaples. It was not despair, or terror, it was more terrible than terror, for it was a blindfold look, and without expression, like a dead rabbit’s.

Can't access reference for clarification but this reads as race-blaming (read: racism) about a viral epidemic no one truly knows the source.

"In hindsight, virologists such as Dr Kennedy Shortridge of Hong Kong University have identified China as ‘the epicentre for influenza epidemics’,22 due to the ingrained Chinese habit of living at close quarters with their animals, keeping vulnerable piglets in their homes..."

NTS: Manage expectations. This book not a science book as evidenced by explanation that avian and human fly viruses can incubate and "combine" in pigs - as if they mix like an omelets rather than multiple mutations of viral genome

("...and that the pigs would subsequently incubate avian viruses and combine them with the human flu viruses acquired through contact with people...")