The Spanish Flu-The Pandemic of 1918-20
By Tom Morrow
The current world-wide pandemic of the COVID-19, a.k.a. “Coronavirus,” is bad and getting worse, but conditions will have to grow much more severe before it comes close to the influenza pandemic of 1918-20.
The 1918-20 influenza pandemic, more commonly known as the “Spanish Flu,” lasted from January 1918 to December 1920, greatly exacerbated by World War I. The pandemic infected as many as 500 million people around the world, or about 27 percent of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion. It knew no boundaries. The infection even spread to relatively isolated people on Pacific islands and in the Arctic.
The world death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.
The strain that caused the Spanish Flu, officially known as H1N1, caused two pandemics: the Spanish Flu in 1918-20, and the second in 2009. That was known as the “Swine Flu.”
The “Spanish Flu” was believed to have been started early 1918, in one of three locations: northern China, England, but most likely in Kansas. Symptoms were misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid.
The disease was first observed in Haskell County, Kansas by a local doctor who warned the U.S. Public Health Service. On March 4, 1918, an army cook reported sick at Fort Riley, Kansas making him the first “recorded” U.S. victim of the flu. Within days, 522 soldiers had reported sick. By March 11, 1918, the virus had reached as far as Queens, New York. Failure to take preventive measures likely added to the problem.
To maintain morale during the waning days of World War I, military censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in the four primary nations, Britain, France, the U.S., and Germany. The severity of the influenza was suppressed in those four nations, but news reports outside were free to report the epidemic’s effects, particularly in neutral Spain. The Spanish news reports created a false impression it was there where the disease began, hence the moniker “Spanish Flu.”
A 2007 analysis of the 1918-20 period found the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. However, WWI conditions included malnourish, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, along with poor hygiene promoted bacterial “superinfections.” The Conclusion: a superinfection killed most of the victims because of those above conditions. The same H1N1strain of the 2009 “Swine Flu” pandemic killed approximately 17,000, far less number because those unsanitary conditions of WWI had been eliminated.
When one considers the toll a pandemic such as the current Coronavirus threatens to be, the fears are well understood. Estimates of those dying during the Spanish Flu pandemic vary. An estimate from a 1991 study says the Spanish Flu killed 25 to 39 million people. However, a 2005 estimate put the death toll at probably 50 million, less than 3 percent of the 1918-20 global population and possibly as high as 100 million, more than 5 percent of the population.
With the Spanish Flu, about 28 percent of the U.S. population of 105 million became infected, and 500,000 to 675,000 died, possibly more than all the wars the U.S. has participated in since 1776. Native American tribes were particularly hard hit. In the Four Corners area (New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah), there were 3,293 registered deaths among Native Americans. Entire Inuit and Alaskan Native village communities died in Alaska. In Canada, 50,000 died.
To put it in perspective, the Spanish Flu killed more people in 24 weeks than HIV/AIDS killed in 24 years. It killed in every area of the globe. As many as 17 million people died in India alone — about 5 percent of that nation’s population at that time.
The Spanish Flu mostly killed young adults. In 1918 and 1919, some 99 percent of pandemic influenza deaths in the U.S., occurred in people under 65, and nearly half of that number in young adults 20 to 40 years old. After the lethal second wave struck in late 1918, between October and November for example, 4,597 people died in Philadelphia during the weeks between October and November. influenza had almost disappeared from that city. One explanation for the rapid decline of the lethality is that doctors got better at preventing and treating the pneumonia that developed after the victims had contracted the virus.
Regarding global economic effects in 1918-20, many businesses in the entertainment and service industries suffered losses in revenue, while the healthcare industry reported profit gains. Present-day events of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) appear to be having the same effect on today’s society.
The current administration is proposing billions of dollars to help stem the tide for both industry and the population. At this time, however, no monetary amount has been settled upon.
As Congress moves to send out billions of dollars, it brings to mind what the late U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, (R-Ill) once observed concerning budgetary negotiations, “… you take a billion here … a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about some serious money.”
Hunker down in your foxholes and stay healthy!