Citizens in San Francisco were fined $5—a significant sum at the time—if they were caught in public without masks and charged with disturbing the peace. What is known, however, is that few locations were immune to the 1918 flu—in America, victims ranged from residents of major cities to those of remote Alaskan communities. Even President Woodrow Wilson reportedly contracted the flu in early 1919 while negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.
- Leisure venues such as theatres and cinemas are closed as part of the current national lockdown, as they were last year when the first nationwide measures were imposed in response to coronavirus.
- But cities across the country, from St. Louis to San Francisco, implemented measures in an attempt to fight the contagion head-on.
- Citizens caught in public without a mask or wearing it improperly were arrested, charged with “disturbing the peace” and fined $5.
- However, the desire for normalcy has in turn resulted in a resurgence of the virus.
The article was worded very well and fairly informative. And that leads me to bring up a part of the Article that most people tend to over look. When i was six our site years old i had very similar symptoms of the Spanish flue and I compared the symptoms of covid 19 and what I had when it was six was actually worse. Im 55 yrs old now and I haven’t had a flu shot in 36 years now and I have no intentions of getting another one with all the Chemical war fair going on in the world. His parents and his two siblings were very ill with the flu so he ran to get help.
What Caused The Spanish Flu?
Photos from that period of time show police officers, barbers, street sweepers and residents donning masks to prevent the spread of influenza. More people wanted to wear masks at the time, but they were much harder to come by than today. Excluding perhaps the Black Plague in the mid-1300s, the Spanish Flu of 1918 registers as the deadliest viral outbreak.
Rapid Response Was Crucial To Containing The 1918 Flu Pandemic
Health officials in the city asked saloons and poolrooms asked to hang posters with flu precautions, that urged against crowds. Movie houses ran public health advisories about how to stop the spread of flu. Though Cleveland was initially slow to implement social distancing measures, the city’s approach overall was robust, historians say. Its death toll was more in line with St. Louis, which implemented social distancing measures two days after its first case and lost about 2,900 residents to the flu in the fall. At one point in Chicago, physicians were reporting a staggering number of new cases, reaching as high as 1,200 people each day.
Much like the coronavirus today, it strained the bonds holding society together. Dehner says that because of these precautions, St. Louis public health officials were able to “flatten the curve” and keep the flu epidemic from exploding overnight as it did in Philadelphia. San Francisco was lauded for its proactive response to the virus, but city officials relaxed their restrictions following the fall of 1918.
School children were being sent home if they showed symptoms. Employers were urged to allow sick employees to stay home until they had recovered. I guess you could say we started “rounding the corner” on Nov. 3rd.
The 1918 Flu Pandemics Effects On New York City
By the time doctors realized the outbreak was influenza, it had spread throughout the camp. A century ago, where restaurants existed, they were crucial for feeding the many new citydwellers who lived in one-room studios or boarding houses; homeownership in 1918 was the exception, not the norm. Take-out as we know it today barely existed, since its popularity depends on people having comfortable homes or office desks where they can take their meals .