Did America respond any better to the Wuhan Flu Covid-19 pandemic than it did to the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago?
I have been waiting for more than two years to read something about our pandemic in comparison to the Spanish Flu of a century ago which killed 600,000 Americans. I've run across nothing. So I finally bought Sandra Opdycke's The Flu Epidemic of 1918, published in 2014.
The most stunning thing for me is that in America the first wave began in January 1918 and the third wave abated in April 1919. So about 15 months, or so. Despite much greater scientific capabilities, we're going on three years with great resistance to declaring the pandemic over as the virus becomes endemic--and not nearly as deadly. Although over a million have died here, but with a population more than 3 times larger than during the Spanish Flu.
Some things stand out a century ago.
A bias towards thinking "dirty" corresponds to infection led authorities to scour patient homes; sweep and hose down streets; disinfect phones, drinking fountains, library books, and clerks' fingers between transactions. This public sanitation is unlikely to have done much good. How similar does our response with cleaning even groceries reflect that basic revulsion of things "dirty" (and unvaccinated)--with an often moral angle to the worries? Only when prominent pro-vaccine people started getting sick did the moral failure angle of refusing to get immunized fade.
Masks were encouraged a century ago, yet had zero value in protection against the virus. To be fair the gauze masks were a far cry from modern N95s. Still, we have no clear evidence that masks helped much given most are not practically superior to the gauze masks of 1918; and the need to properly wear the right kind. But a century ago, the public health officials realized eventually that the masks did not work.
Still, approval of mask use was expressed as a means of reassuring people they could go about their jobs without destroying our economy. As for mask mandates, the mayor of Denver quipped that it would take half the city to make the other half wear masks. Indeed, high ranking politicians a century ago were seen flouting mask advice. How familiar that sounds, eh?
In some ways our vaccinations are the modern version of the masks. The vaccination for Covid-19 promised an end to lockdowns and social distancing. It gave us some measure of reassurance to restart the economy. But it was no better than the gauze masks of the Spanish Flu in slowing the spread of the virus. Sure, the vaccination reduced severity of the virus. But I did qualify the comparison.
As a matter of perspective, the book notes the 1977 global flu epidemic that was called Russian Flu despite the likelihood that it started in China. I have zero memory of 1977 being any type of crisis. I was in high school then, but I have no memory of anything out of the ordinary. It was mild and--wait for it--"many scientists suspect that it escaped from a laboratory, perhaps in connection with work on germ warfare."
The author notes that in recent years (from the publishing date of 2014) scientists in several countries began manipulating genetically the H5N1 influenza virus to study the process that could lead it to mutate to a more contagious type. In 2011 people were alarmed this kind of research might lead to an escape (or theft) from the laboratories and trigger a major pandemic. There was a temporary moratorium but it was ended in 2013 with new guidelines to "ensure heightened security."
Huzzah for "heightened security" in labs.
But the book was hopeful, noting that the world has made great strides in spotting a new virus once they emerge so we can react. WHO, the CDC, and other similar bodies were lauded for their research and surveillance capacity.
And yet here we are with a WHO that ran interference for China which hid the emergence of Covid-19 in China; and the CDC that initially dismissed the worries of the epidemic news leaking out of a closed China.
This is not meant to be a review of the book or a comparison of pandemics. Just some things that stick out in my mind from reading the book having endured this current epidemic and lockdown policies
Sometimes I wonder if our response to Covid-19 reflects that Americans are (luckily) unused to death as a routine part of life. This winter, as Americans get back to normal life, the normal illnesses seem scary:
For the Covid regime’s loyal subjects, such normalcy simply won’t do. Hence the attempt to extend the 2020-era climate of fear over other, more common illnesses. Or as the Washington Post wishfully put it, “Face masks may return amid holiday ‘tripledemic’ of Covid, flu and RSV.”
Having stepped into the false security of a mask and social distancing cocoon, are too many people unable to step into the real world that once took those normal illnesses in stride? The Covid-19 pandemic and our government's response were bad enough. Why embrace it as a "new normal"?
One issue with the duration of the current pandemic may be a "definitions" issue. Did the Spanish Flu linger on despite the abatement of the third wave? Would public health and government officials of a century ago look at our situation and declare the pandemic was really over nine months ago when deaths dropped dramatically and leveled out? Or did our shots and social isolation have the effect of stretching out the pandemic that otherwise would have burned through our people and run out of potential hosts more quickly?
Our efforts that might have lengthened the pandemic might have saved lives from the pandemic itself in the long run. I can offer no judgment on whether the length of our pandemic response killed and harmed more people from non-pandemic causes than it saved from Covid-19. I hope our public health researchers can analyze that without being tainted by politics or institutional biases. I look forward to reading a useful comparison of our respective responses to pandemic.
Life must go on. What's the point of living through this pandemic it if we hide in fear of the normal?
Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?
Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.
But I have to ask if this possibility is a function of our vaccine and lockdown responses that have prevented the virus from burning out sooner.
The debate on the balance sheet of saving lives versus harming lives by our pandemic response could be fascinating. Eventually. When the political positions are mere history.
And I will ask, will this be an epidemic inside China? Or will China's problem again infect the world as a pandemic. By design or incompetence--or just the way viruses work?
NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
