Summary

A pandemic contains three key components: extensiveness, novelty, and severity. For the past century, humankind experienced the Spanish flu in 1918 and COVID-19 in 2020 as major pandemics. The global impact has been extensive in terms of their origin, international transmission, and mortality rates. Public health measures to slow and stop pandemics have been implemented. During the COVID-19 pandemic, disparate impacts on health in different populations have been witnessed due to existing social inequalities, detriments of health, and structured racism. The interests of social workers have been adversely impacted in those pandemic times. Spanish flu bolstered social work with a professional presence. COVID-19 has confirmed the need for community engagement and community development to follow large-scale social policy reforms as a response to the disproportionate impact on diverse marginalized communities, which is the core of macro social work practice and would be more strongly called on to prepare for future pandemics.