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What Came Next?: Reflections on the Aftermath(s) of the 1918–19 Flu Pandemic in the Age of COVID

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Christopher McKnight Nichols ,
E. Thomas Ewing ,
K. Healan Gaston ,
Maddalena Marinari ,
Alan Lessoff  and
David Huyssen
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Keywords

pandemicinfluenzaCOVIDSpanish flupublic health
Type
Roundtable
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 111 - 149
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE)

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References

Notes

1 Historians differ on the most appropriate periodization for the influenza pandemic that began in early 1918. Some emphasize the long reach of the pandemic into the 1920s, centering on a fourth wave that occurred in late fall 1919/winter 1920; while others, like ourselves for the purposes of this article, focus on the acute stages of 1918–19. The 1918–19 period was the most intense period of the pandemic (the first three waves, with the second, in fall 1918, being by far the most deadly); thereafter the flu became endemic (that is, what we now think of as the “seasonal flu”). It is worth noting that in many regions of the United States the fourth wave of flu infections in winter 1920 was worse in terms of total deaths than the first and third waves.

2 “Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count,” New York Times, updated July 6, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

3 E. Thomas Ewing, “Measuring Mortality in the Pandemics of 1918–1919 and 2020–21,” Health Affairs Blog, Apr. 1, 2021, https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20210329.51293/full/ (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

4 E. Thomas Ewing, “The First American Cases of Coronavirus Shouldn’t Spark a Panic,” Made by History Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/28/first-american-cases-coronavirus-shouldnt-spark-panic/ (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

5 “The Project Behind a Front Page Full of Names,” New York Times, May 24, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/reader-center/coronavirus-new-york-times-front-page.html (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

6 Dan Levin, “Covid Has Claimed More Than 600,000 Lives in the U.S.,” New York Times, June 16, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/600000-us-covid-deaths.html (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

7 Maura Turcotte, “Virus Cases are Surging at Crowded Immigration Detention Centers in the U.S.,” New York Times, July 6, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/06/us/covid-immigration-detention.html (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

8 See the University of Minnesota “Immigrants in COVID America: Documenting the Impact of COVID-19 on Immigrants and Refugees in the United States” Project, https://immigrantcovid.umn.edu (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

9 Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2019).

10 Daryl Joji Maeda, “Anti-Asian Violence: The Racist Use of COVID-19,” OUPblog, Apr. 5, 2021. https://blog.oup.com/2021/04/anti-asian-violence-the-racist-use-of-covid-19/ (accessed Nov, 1, 2021).

11 “Not a Godless Sabbath,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. 14, 1918, 14.

12 “Go to Church in Your Own Home Today,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 1918, II1.

13 “Zoar M. E. Church,” Philadelphia Tribune, Oct. 19, 1918, 2.

14 U. G. Leeper, “Allen A. M. E. Church,” Philadelphia Tribune, Oct. 26, 1918, 2.

15 “Northwestern Breezes,” Philadelphia Tribune, Oct. 26, 1918, 4.

16 “Not a Godless Sabbath,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. 14, 1918, 14.

17 Chuck Collins, “Updates: Billionaire Wealth, U.S. Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers,” Inequality.org, July 14, 2021, https://inequality.org/great-divide/updates-billionaire-pandemic/ (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

18 Pew Research Center, “Broad Public Support for Coronavirus Aid Package; Just a Third Say It Spends Too Much,” Mar. 9, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/03/09/broad-public-support-for-coronavirus-aid-package-just-a-third-say-it-spends-too-much/ (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

19 Nancy K. Bristow, American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 178.

20 “The Official Global Virus Death Toll Has Passed Five Million. The Full Count Is Undoubtedly Higher,” New York Times, Nov. 1, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/world/5-million-covid-deaths.html (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

21 Death totals for 1918–19 come from Niall P. A. S. Johnson and Juergen Mueller. “Updating the Accounts: Global Mortality of the 1918–1920 ‘Spanish’ Influenza Pandemic” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 76:1 (2002): 105–15. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/bhm.2002.0022.; death totals for 2020–2021 come from “Coronavirus World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html (accessed Aug. 5, 2021).

22 Jack Beresford, “Dad’s Passionate Defense of Mask Mandates in Tennessee Schools Goes Viral,” Newsweek, Aug. 18, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/justin-kanew-passionate-defense-mask-mandates-schools-tennessee-viral-1620481 (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

23 For example, see Ian Lovett, “White Evangelicals Resist Covid-19 Vaccine Most Among Religious Groups,” Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-evangelicals-resist-covid-19-vaccine-most-among-religious-groups-11627464601 (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

24 Statistics from https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-casualties (accessed Aug, 19, 2021).

25 Ralph T. Jones, “Silhouettes: Sometime We Wonder,” Atlanta Constitution, July 5, 1939, 6.

26 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that 2020 marked the largest one-year drop in life expectancy since World War II. “Life Expectancy in the U.S. Declined a Year and Half in 2020,” CDC news release, July 21, 202,. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/202107.htm (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

27 “Featured Document: Bracero Workers,” American Social History Project, Center for Media and Learning, CUNY, The Graduate Center, Mar. 20, 2011. Image: Bracero workers being fumigated with DDT in Houston, Texas, 1956. Courtesy of the Leonard Nadel Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, https://ashp.cuny.edu/news/featured-document-bracero-workers (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

28 Peggy Noonan, “Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2016; Bret Stephens, “In This Election, It’s the Remote against the Exposed,” New York Times, May 15, 2020.

29 Richard Florida, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It (New York: Basic Books, 2017).

30 Eric Klinenberg, “We Need Social Solidarity, Not Just Social Distancing,” New York Times, Mar. 14, 2020.

31 Scott Neuman, “Medical Examiner’s Autopsy Reveals George Floyd Had Positive Test for Coronavirus,” National Public Radio, June 4, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/04/869278494/medical-examiners-autopsy-reveals-george-floyd-had-positive-test-for-coronavirus (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

32 Medical Department—Influenza Epidemic 1918—Policemen in Seattle, Washington, wearing masks made by the Seattle Chapter of the Red Cross, during the influenza epidemic. National Archives. Record Group 165, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/45499339 (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).

33 Douglas Almond, “Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Journal of Political Economy 114:4 (Aug. 2006): 708.

34 Almond, “Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over?,” 672.

35 Credible evidence points to the conclusion that swift and early implementation of policies to inhibit viral transmission (testing and masking regimes, distancing, stay-at-home orders, etc.), even if immediately more costly or disruptive to economic activity, pay off by both public health and economic measures. Some policies are more effective than others, but the overall conclusion reflects observable experience internationally. See, for instance, this Brookings study: https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/epidemiological-and-economic-effects-of-lockdown/ (accessed Nov. 1, 2021).