Letter to the Editor: COVID-19 shutdown

To the Editor:

As we face the COVID-19 pandemic and struggle with the country’s shutdown, we must not let ourselves become too impatient to return to normal. It might help us to revisit an earlier epidemic.

One of the world’s worst pandemics occurred in 1918 with an influenza virus. It killed anywhere from 40 or 50 million to 100 million worldwide. According to John Barry’s The Great Influenza, probably 675,000 deaths in the U.S. were due to the influenza.

The first major outbreak started in an army camp in Funston, KS in March 1918. Infected soldiers moving from camp to camp spread the disease and 30 of the largest cities near the camps also suffered outbreaks that spring.

The first wave of the influenza was not particularly lethal. Of the 1,185 men hospitalized in Camp Funston, only 38 died. But as the virus adapted to humans, the second wave became more dangerous in the late summer and fall.

Philadelphia became one of the cities hit hardest. Although cases of the influenza were reported in other cities and in Philadelphia itself, the Director of Public Health reassured the public that no epidemic was in the city, and he made no plans in case of an outbreak or stockpiled supplies. September 28, the city held a large war bonds parade, and the disease exploded. More than 500,000 fell sick, and on one single day, October 10, 759 deaths were recorded.

Because of the war effort, the military had taken at least one-fourth, and in some parts of the country, one-third of all physicians and nurses. Medical and social services were overwhelmed. As Barry put it, “Corpses were wrapped in sheets, pushed into corners, left there sometimes for days… people too sick to cook for themselves, too sick to clean themselves, too sick to move the corpse off the bed… The dead lay there for days.”

As we continue to shelter in place, practice social distancing, and wait for a vaccine to be developed, we can learn from Philadelphia’s experience. Although the 1918 virus appears to have been more transmissible and deadly than the virus that causes COVID-19, as our hospitalization and death rates show, it is still very dangerous.

Until we have developed an accurate and widespread testing program, we must not let false optimism or partisan politics cause us to open up our economy and to relax our mitigation and control efforts. We do not want to repeat Philadelphia’s mistakes.

Thomas W. Hill
Lansing and Cedar Falls