|
 We reached out to local historian, author, and
retired educator Bill Donath. We asked him if he had some
information that we could share about the Spanish Flu and how it
impacted Logan County.
As it turns out, Donath has spent the last five years researching
and writing on that very topic. He put together a 261-page book
about the Spanish Flu and the lives it impacted locally. Donath has
completed his book and it had been sent off to the printer just
prior to the outbreak of corona virus in the United States.
And, irony on irony, the printing of that book has been suspended
because of our current situation, the first world pandemic since
Spanish Flu. However, Donath was kind enough to write up a synopsis
of the book and provide it to us to assist in our quest.
That synopsis is being published as presented by Donath.
About the Spanish Flu
The Spanish Flu began in 1918 and was officially considered to be
over in 1920. The flu was highly contagious and deadly. According to
information on the CDC website, the flu infected approximately 500
million people worldwide – one third of the world population. In the
United States 50 million people were infected and there was an
estimated 675,000 deaths in our country.
In Logan County, there were at least 3,100 confirmed cases and an
estimated 436 deaths.
The Spanish Flu was an H1N1 type flu. That may sound familiar to
many today because though we don’t say “Spanish Flu” any longer, we
do hear H1N1 every year, and it is one strain that is included in
flu vaccines.
It is not known exactly where the Spanish Flu originated, but it is
known that it came into the United States with members of the
military who had been in Europe in 1918.
The Spanish Flu was reported to have the worst impact on younger
people, those in their 20s and 30s, and even very young children.
About Covid-19
There are two words associated with this 2020 pandemic – Covid-19
and coronavirus. Some wonder which is the most correct, and why both
words are being thrown out there so often.
Coronavirus (all one word according to the CDC) is the name of a
strain of viruses that have been in existence for a while. Covid-19
is the name of the particular strain the world is dealing with at
the moment.
There are other coronavirus strains that we are familiar with, such
as SARS and MERS.
The name Covid-19 contains the number 19 because technically the
disease started in 2019 in China. It did not become widely known
that the disease existed until early 2020.
The source of the virus is being attributed to animals, and more
specifically open air markets in China.
The disease can be carried by many animals including camels, cattle,
cats, and bats. The CDC does not spell out specifically how that
connects to open air markets, but it is known that the disease was
first spread from an open air market with live animals and seafood
for sale, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
Covid-19 is currently reported to be impacting people in their older
years or with ongoing health issues. Reports of deaths from Covid-19
show that mortality rates are highest among those who are age 75 and
above, but also has infected and taken the life of much younger
people on a smaller scale.
Similarities in the two pandemics
The two pandemics do share some similarities.
Both have proven to be deadly and highly contagious.
Both have their deadliest impact on the respiratory systems.
In the days of the Spanish Flu, one of the largest controversies
associated with the disease was the necessity of quarantine and its
effectiveness in battling the spread of the influenza.
Today, one of the biggest controversies with Covid-19 is that of the
shelter in place. As time progresses, more and more people are
becoming impatient with the situation and are choosing to protest
the orders to stay at home.
Both Spanish Flu and now Covid-19 negatively impacted the economy.
In 1918, local governments implemented what was called
non-pharmaceutical interventions and that included the closure of
businesses as part of controlling human interactions. While that
proved to be a devastating blow for many businesses at the moment,
the government reported that after the virus was annihilated, the
economy bounced back. The country enjoyed prosperity until the Great
Depression of 1929.
Today, many government officials from the President of the United
States right down to the Lincoln City Treasurer are predicting that
we will see a similar bounce back once this disease is under
control.
The differences between the two pandemics
From a journalistic viewpoint, the biggest difference in the two
pandemics is the transmission of information.
Donath writes in his synopsis that it was difficult to determine the
accuracy of the Logan County death counts during the Spanish Flu
because there was a lack of records. He gleaned most of his
information from newspaper accounts, death records, and the
Lincoln City Health Department and notes that information
from outside the city was harder to find. At that time there was
NO county health department, and no central location for
collecting data.
We know that today the Logan County Department of Public Health is
playing a big part in tracking with Covid-19 through our community.
The dashboard that they have available online is updated each day
and is accessible to anyone. In addition, the LCDPH is partnering
with Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital to put out to local press
offices a daily report of the Covid tests being performed, their
results and the number of people infected and if any are
hospitalized. To date the reports have registered great big goose
eggs in the category of local lives lost.
Today we watch our Governor and our President on television as they
offer up daily reports. There was no television in 1918. The
television didn’t come to be until 1927. However, there was radio,
so people could stay informed that way as well as by newspaper.
However, the World War had come to an end in 1918, and President
Woodrow Wilson was reported to be much more interested in dealing
with war’s ending than the Spanish Flu. Though it was later
announced that the President himself contracted the flu and survived
it, he refused to acknowledge it as a serious problem in the United
States.
In March 2020, an article published in The News Republic - How
America’s Newspapers Covered Up a Pandemic - The terrifying,
censored coverage of the 1918 Spanish flu by Walter Shapiro
summed up the Presidential reaction to the disease.
“In October 1918 alone, 195,000 Americans died
from the virus. Yet President Woodrow Wilson, obsessed with a war in
Europe that would end on November 11, made no public references to
the disease. And states received no assistance from Washington, not
even from the Food and Drug Administration.” [to top of second
column] |
In stark contrast, our federal government and our
state government have both been highly visible during the Covid-19
Pandemic. Regardless of whether you support our Republican President
Donald Trump or our Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker, no one should
be able to deny that both of those leaders have been highly engaged
in the battle against this disease and have offered leadership to
the best of their ability.
Looking at the last sentence of that March 2020 article – states
received no assistance from Washington, D.C., not even from the Food
and Drug Administration.
In stark contrast, the public has heard daily of the financial
assistance that is going to the states. There is a multitude of
information being provided by the CDC on how to protect ourselves,
and the federal government has deployed FEMA and the Army Corps of
Engineers to assist states with immediate medical facility needs and
other tools that will be needed to defeat this illness.
While many of us may be wondering how the government
can afford to do what it is doing, and when and how the ‘pay back’
will come about, there is no denying that the government has thrown
a lot of money at this problem. With multiple programs to help
working families who are now sheltering in place and small
businesses that have had to shutter their doors for the health and
safety of their community, the government is trying to keep everyone
going through this tough time.
During the Spanish Flu there was no medical recourse for fighting
the disease. There were no medications that could be administered.
From the CDC website: “With no vaccine to
protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat
secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza
infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to
non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good
personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public
gatherings, which were applied unevenly.”
Science and technology over the last 100 years has advanced
substantially. While there is not a vaccine for Covid-19 yet,
scientists are rushing to create one. Research doctors are
experimenting with drugs that have been used to treat other
illnesses with similar symptoms to see if they have an impact on
those infected. And, while the results are mixed, they keep trying,
keep searching, and are hopeful that they will be able to give us
something useful in the near future. There have been a few reported
cases of a drug that is commonly used for Malaria that has had a
positive effect on some patients.
The President’s task force, led by Vice-President Pence is well
aware that Covid-19 is not going to go away forever, and on the
short list of work to accomplish is to develop a vaccine that will
protect our populations in the future. That work is ongoing, and
we’ve been assured that the work will not stop until the vaccine is
ready to be administered to everyone.
There was also a shortage of doctors in 1918 compared to the number
of patients. In his book, Donath notes that there was a doctor –
a doctor – in many of our small town
communities. He also noted that the doctors were not immune to the
disease and two, Dr. Paine of New Holland and Dr. Brock of Atlanta
died of the flu. In addition, he noted that about half of the
doctors in the county were called to the army camps.
In the book, Donath quotes a paragraph quoted by Phil Bertoni in
2018 and written by Harry Van Hook:
"Hit hard in Mt. Pulaski, too - Harry Van Hook
writes in his book, 'Three Miles From Salt Creek', that his dad, Dr.
Forrest Van Hook, was absent from his house for days going about the
countryside treating the sick and dying. Harry writes that his dad
told him he'd go into a farm house and most or all of the family
would be sick in bed, with the dead children on the kitchen floor."
Today, Logan County has access to a number of doctors and
specialists. While we perhaps still don’t have all the doctors we
could use for the population of the county, the resources are much
greater than they were in 1918.
We do see a shortage in nurses and CNA’s not just in Logan County,
but all around the country. However those that we do have are very
well educated, with plenty of experience and compassion for the
patients they care for.
But looking back at 1918, the shortage of doctors, the lack of
governmental leadership, and the “uneven” application of
non-pharmaceutical interventions such as quarantines and shelter in
place rules were factors that kept the disease rolling along for two
years. Those factors were also all intertwined. With not enough
doctors, family members attempted to take care of each other.
Donath’s book offers accounts of people who traveled to be with a
sick person in the family, only to come home with the influenza
themselves.
With no assistance from the government, businesses had a harder time
keeping their doors closed, and would have to try to re-open, often
times too soon.
Donath wrote that there were three occasions in 1918 alone when
quarantines and shelter in place appeared to be working, so people
would get back to their normal routines, only to have the influenza
come back.
This is part of the history of the Spanish Flu that our federal and
state leaders are taking to heart. We can’t go back to normal too
soon. That is the reasoning behind the three phases on the return to
normalcy.
We are being asked to recognize that we can’t go back to the way we
were on March 1st. We have been told we can’t jump back into society
with both feet and full steam ahead.
It’s a hard pill to swallow. Our local small businesses need to get
back to work, but even this week our Governor has said that while
the original Stay at Home order was scheduled to be lifted the end
of April, he is debating whether or not that should happen.
It may be hard for Logan County to understand, because we have
proven to be the exception not the rule in the number of daily
cases. But, perhaps we need to consider that the reason we are the
exception and not the rule is because our citizens have done a good
job of protecting ourselves and each other.
So, was the Spanish Flu worse than Covid-19? Some say yes, some say
that Covid-19 is no worse than any other flu and that our country
and state leaders are over reacting.
And, maybe there is some validity to that theory. But, we should
also stop and ask ourselves a few other questions.
If Woodrow Wilson were the President today, would we be doing this
well?
If science and technology had not advanced as it has in the last 100
years, would we be doing this well?
If we were not adhering to the Stay at Home orders, would we be
doing this well?
If we did not have the advances in medicine and research, would we
be doing this well?
If we were suffering from Covid-19 in 1918, would we be doing this
well?
Probably no one can fully answer those questions, but can we all be
thankful that we don’t have to find out?
We hope so.
In the meantime, stay in, stay healthy, and we’ll look forward to
seeing you when this is finally all over.
[Nila Smith] |
