What the 1918 flu pandemic tells us about whether social distancing works

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

In 1918, influenza swept the globe in a series of waves. Probably emerging in the spring of 1918 in the American midwest, this new virus moved through the US largely unnoticed by a nation at war. Soon, though, it travelled to Europe through American troops, infecting first combatants, then the entire continent and beyond. But this pandemic was only getting started. In late August a second, more deadly wave crashed on to the shores of the US, France and Sierra Leone almost simultaneously and rushed from there to sicken the entire world. This was, in many communities, soon followed by a third wave. When the virus finally slowed in 1920, an estimated 500 million people had been stricken worldwide, and 50 million to 100 million people had perished. Of those, 675,000 deaths were in the US.

But what’s most useful to us today is the comparative experience of Philadelphia and Seattle. Philadelphia, despite having some warning that the pandemic was coming, did little to prepare.

 

Though Boston was under siege by late September, Philadelphia continued to conduct business as usual. On 28 September it hosted a massive kickoff parade for the Fourth Liberty Loan, the bond drive used to support the American war effort. Three days later the city reported 635 new influenza cases, and the situation soon worsened. Though the city now moved to protect itself, Philadelphia was overwhelmed by the epidemic. Available healthcare resources, already compromised by the war effort, were quickly stretched past their limits. Morgues overflowing with the dead, a desperate shortage of coffins and a resort to mass graves resulted from the city’s failure to move early to prepare. Philadelphia suffered one of the nation’s highest death rates.

Seattle offers a very different story. On 20 September, the city’s commissioner of health, Dr JS McBride, acknowledged that “it was not unlikely” that influenza would reach the city and warned the citizenry that, if it did, isolating cases would be necessary. When soldiers at nearby Camp Lewis came down with the flu, the camp was quarantined. 

Not uncommonly, the city soon faced a return of the disease. Again the city acted, this time quarantining the sick. As a result of these actions, Seattle suffered one of the lower death rates on the West Coast, substantially lower than Philadelphia’s.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/29/us-responses-1918-flu-pandemic-offer-stark-lessons-coronavirus-now

[Maleficent 6]

To play Devil's Advocate: "After the lethal second wave struck in late 1918, new cases dropped abruptly – almost to nothing after the peak in the second wave. In Philadelphia, for example, 4,597 people died in the week ending 16 October, but by 11 November, influenza had almost disappeared from the city." 

We can't hide from the virus forever...and a mass produced and marketed vaccine seems to be 18 months off (at least) 

[Bt1 5,213]

Social distancing works. Lockdowns, like I've said, is a butcher's proposal. They work a little, but you also have to be blind to their effects to consider them effective. 

Also, 2020 isnt 1918. Our living conditions are completely different. Science has change so much. The mortality rate of influenza 1918 is so much higher than covid. This comparasion makes little sense.