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The fourth influenza wave, while deadly, was mostly ignored in 1920

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* I’ve been meaning to post this for several days and kept forgetting. From the Washington Post…

In New York City in 1920 — nearly two years into a deadly influenza pandemic that would claim at least 50 million lives worldwide — the new year began on a bright note.

“Best Health Report for City in 53 Years,” boasted a headline in the New York Times on Jan. 4, 1920, after New York had survived three devastating waves of the flu virus. The nation as a whole, which would ultimately lose 675,000 people to the disease, believed that the end might finally be in sight.

Within a few weeks, however, those optimistic headlines began to change. Before the end of the month, New York City would experience a surge in influenza cases. Chicago and other urban centers reported the same.

Residents should prepare themselves for an “influenza return,” New York City health commissioner Royal S. Copeland warned. He predicted that the virus variant responsible for the surge would be milder and that those who had fallen ill the previous year would be immune. He was wrong, at least in part: While many places worldwide did not see a fourth wave of the great influenza pandemic, several metropolises — including New York City, Chicago and Detroit — had another deadly season in store. […]

By the winter of 1919-1920, Americans were weary of the limitations on daily life. Nearly all of the public health restrictions — such as mask-wearing, social distancing and the closure of schools and churches — had been lifted. A hasty return to public gatherings led to an increase in case numbers. Politicians either blamed people’s carelessness for the reemergence of the virus or downplayed the seriousness of it.

The fourth wave was not front-page news in the way that prior spikes had been. The coverage was often relegated to small paragraphs deep inside newspapers, reporting thousands of new cases on a weekly or even daily basis. By February 1920, there was an epidemic in a state prison in New Jersey, and some courts were forced to halt proceedings because of illness.

But if the fourth wave failed to generate the kinds of headlines and fear of its predecessors, it wasn’t for a lack of lethality. In New York City, more people died in the period from December 1919 to April 1920 than in the first and third waves, according to a research paper on influenza mortality in the city. Detroit, St. Louis and Minneapolis also experienced significant fourth waves, and severe “excess mortality” was reported in many counties in Michigan because of the flu.

People basically just said “To heck with this” and moved on, despite the new wave of hospitalizations and deaths. Both of my maternal grandparents lived through the flu pandemic and neither one ever mentioned it to me. I learned about it from books while I was in college. I’ve often wondered how this massive die-off could be sent down a global memory hole. I no longer wonder how that happened. And if you thought local news outlets ignored omicron even when their local hospitals were filled to the brim, just wait until the next wave.

* Related…

* WHO says new omicron BA.2 subvariant will rise globally, but scientists don’t know if it can reinfect people: “BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 so we expect to see BA.2 increasing in detection around the world,” Van Kerkhove said during a question-and-answer session livestreamed on the WHO’s social media platforms Tuesday.

* BA.2 ‘Stealth’ Variant Found in Nearly All U.S. States as Reinfection Capability Unclear

* The COVID Strategy America Hasn’t Really Tried: The clearest way to reduce deaths is to push to vaccinate more of the elderly—yes, still!

* The Seven Habits of COVID-Resilient Nations: 1. Learn from past shocks to prepare for the next crisis; 2. Channel scientific and other expert advice into policy and strategy; 3. Follow the data in real time; 4. Communicate clearly and transparently with the public; 5. Cultivate public trust in government and fellow citizens; 6. Design centralized systems sensitive to local concerns; 7. Recognize that no country can cope with shock entirely on its own; And, crucially, resilience is not the absence of failure. It is, instead, failure with grace, followed by robust recovery. For two years we’ve sought out neat success stories in the struggle with COVID. The real trick is managing vulnerabilities to avoid surrendering to shock.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:09 am

Comments

All the more reason that the impending relaxing of the mask mandate (except schools) the end of the month is a mistake at this time.

For the record, I was among the first to get fully vaccinated and boosted, but I consider myself immunocompromised (but never officially diagnosed as such). I’m not planning to remove masks from my daily routine for years if needed, and if it’s up to me I don’t want to do large scale activities ever again.

Comment by NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:13 am
“The Seven Habits of COVID-Resilient Nations”

What? Are you crazy?

Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:13 am
“5. Cultivate public trust in government and fellow citizens”

Well it is a good thing no one is actively trying to undermine that.

Comment by Homebody Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:15 am
“The Seven Habits of COVID-Resilient Nations”

That lesson plan was tossed into the trash when covid first hit. While there have been attempts to retrieve it, none have been successful.

Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:16 am
My grandfather, a resident of Knox County, succumbed to the 1918 Spanish Flu in January 1920. Reports at the time from the local newspapers confirm the devastating impact of the flu in rural Western Illinois.

Comment by SilverStreak Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:20 am
== Cultivate public trust in government and fellow citizens”==
Trust my fellow citizens? This is satire right?

Comment by Bruce( no not him) Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:23 am
My grandmother talked about the 1918-20 flu some. I’m reading a book on 1918 in Minnesota which included the flu, WWI, and a massive wildfire. I used to think that the lack of information was due to WWI and it just all happening at once, but now I see exactly how it happened.

For those wanting a good book on the 1918 flu, read The Great Influenza by John Barry. Other than not having the internet to reinforce every crazy idea, the US reacted nearly the same.

Comment by Archpundit Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:25 am
I wish that all we were doing was ignoring the pandemic. What we’re seeing is a wholesale war on public health by a party using it for partisan gain. By the time they’re done, our health system will be no better than that during the Spanish Flu era.

Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:33 am
The flu killed my maternal grandmother’s boyfriend. She eventually married his friend, my grandfather. Both men were West Point cadets.

Comment by markg8 Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:33 am
It’s hard to build trust in government when it has been attacked on the right for decades, and when the left and others sat back and let it happen without strong counter-messaging. What sort of fruit should we expect such tree to bear, so to speak, but many who distrust our public health experts and institutions?

Comment by Grandson of Man Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:34 am
I’d say the only thing we have going for ourselves right now is a very effective vaccine. I suspect there is a fourth wave coming but it again will almost exclusively kill the unvaccinated.

And all this should get ramped back up again just about Election Day in November. So ratchet up the conspiracy theories.

Comment by Cool Papa Bell Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:39 am
It hit my father, two years old. He often talked of how he was literally measured for a coffin.
When he contracted Parkinson’s in late life, a doctor at U of C told him that the virus was still hiding in his system waiting for weakness. This was the cause of his atypical symptoms, only seen in survivors of the Spanish Flu.

Comment by Streamwood Retiree Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:45 am
= Trust my fellow citizens? This is satire right? =

I trust my fellow citizens - to behave exactly the same way. I’ve prepared accordingly.

Our technology has advanced, but the negative aspects of human nature haven’t been removed by technology.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 10:52 am
Taking into account that Americans today have the attention span of a gnat on crystal meth, this story is even more chilling.

Comment by Flyin' Elvis'-Utah Chapter Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 11:02 am
=when it has been attacked on the right for decades=

The real cognitive dissonance is that the people on the right leading the charge are IN GOVERNMENT and many have been in government for decades. They are attacking themselves.

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 11:11 am
still gonna wear a mask. hoping the vaccinations offered keep up with the developing virus. and trying to get better about other aspect of my health. even the flu is scary as one ages.

Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 11:21 am
“Politicians either blamed people’s carelessness for the reemergence of the virus or downplayed the seriousness of it.”

Golly.

I wonder what that was like.

– MrJM

Comment by MisterJayEm Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 11:25 am
I think there are very few circumstances under which mask mandates come back after they get lifted in a couple weeks. If the current vaccine is not effective against a new variant, then yes. Otherwise, I think we are reaching our new normal, whether it is time for it or not.

Comment by Montrose Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 11:29 am
Like others, my grandmother lived through the 1918 influenza pandemic. She and her brothers and sisters had been orphaned a few years before. The unmarried siblings continued living at the family farm, being watched over by the older ones and other family who lived nearby. My grandmother would have been 20 in 1918.

I remember both my grandmother and great aunt telling about getting sick with the flu. My aunt was so sick that she wasn’t expected to survive and an older sister who was on her way by train to the home of an older brother in California stopped at Denver and was preparing to come back to Illinois. Fortunately she rallied and wound up living to be almost 100.

The account of that trying time made an impression on me, which is one reason I have taken it very seriously. I wish I had asked them more details.

Science has advanced greatly, but human nature doesn’t seem to have changed much in the last hundred years. Just as at the start of this pandemic, politicians, led by the president, tried to downplay and coverup the severity of the outbreak. Public health officials who were doing their best to encourage masking and social distancing were vilified.

Even worse now is the fact that there are safe and highly effective vaccines widely available, yet many people are too foolish or hoodwinked to make use of them. If Trump deserves credit for anything, it is pushing for the rapid development of the Covid vaccines. Talk about people rejecting a gift from God! It is hard to understand how people can be so foolish with their own health and selfish in protecting others.

Comment by MoralMinority Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 12:11 pm
This strikes me as being very related to the topic.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-nothing-normal-about-one-million-people-dead-from-covid1/

This is why no body goes to the good place.

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 12:11 pm
I think mentally we’re transitioning from pandemic to endemic. The virus is everywhere and mutating constantly with no guarantee the vaccine will stop future spreads, though they will decrease the death rate. Most people want to move on and many want the protections of masks and vaccinations, but the vocal minority, who want neither, are controlling the news media and now most of our politicians due to upcoming elections. Moving forward, I don’t see lockdowns or mandates coming back once they end.

Comment by Wensicia Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 12:24 pm
My grandmother did not finish her senior year of high school because of the flu epidemic. She would talk about how most of her high school friends had died from the flu and about the loneliness of being a survivor. I have often wondered if our Covid response would have been different if it had killed the young instead of the old. But maybe not.

Comment by Cityrat Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 12:50 pm
== I have often wondered if our Covid response would have been different if it had killed the young instead of the old. ==

This is why polio and measles vaccines were widely adopted, I believe. A child in an iron lung or permanent wheelchair has far bigger psychological impact than out of shape 50 year olds. Yes that adult could have lived another 30 years otherwise, but it is way easier to rationalize away than a permanently disabled child.

Comment by Homebody Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 1:01 pm
My grandfather born in 1900 was a complete germaphobe by the time I knew him. Now I understand how he became one. He was absolutely obsessed with hand washing. Makes sense knowing what he went through as a young man with a global pandemic. He told a lot of stories but never mentioned that period of deadly flu. Too many other major world events he had lived through apparently, Depression, World Wars…

Comment by Ugh Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 3:17 pm
I am all for lifting the mask mandate. Not the vaccine mandate……..the thing that works. Officially off the team.

Comment by DMC Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 3:34 pm
We have been told that we must learn to live with this pandemic.
So I will continue to get booster vaccines and wear a mask to the grocery store and library.
This is how I will live with this ongoing pandemic. Anyway, I actually like zoom meetings.

Comment by Enviro Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 4:50 pm
== am all for lifting the mask mandate. Not the vaccine mandate==

I am all in favor of both the mask and vaccine mandates. Hurry up and bring on the all public employees get vaccinated requirement. Bring on Mandatory Vaxes for all state employees or face Consequences.

Comment by NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham Tuesday, Feb 15, 22 @ 6:06 pm
==Moving forward, I don’t see lockdowns or mandates coming back once they end. ==

Depends what happens with the virus. If a much more deadly variant shows up, it’s hard to argue that there should be no restrictions based merely on people not wanting them. Not that a worse virus is likely but nobody can predict the future.

Comment by The Velvet Frog Wednesday, Feb 16, 22 @ 8:27 am
=== If a much more deadly variant shows up===

Unless that mythical variant bats off vaccines like Serena Williams, the days of harsh mitigations are long over.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Feb 16, 22 @ 8:33 am