
History of 1918 Flu Pandemic - chmaynard
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm
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grabbalacious
It's hard to think about these potential calamities. Any given pandemic is
unlikely to be on the scale of 1918. But the next big one will come,
eventually. Any given asteroid strike is unlikely to be on the scale of a
Yucatan. But the next big one will come, eventually. And the fact that there
were so many small pandemics, impacts and so on will be used as evidence by
Naysayers that there's nothing to worry about. And Doomsayers will continue to
classify each potential calamity as uniquely dangerous in order to gain
leverage.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
I was watching a Nova episode about Fukushima and it seems inexplicable that
the plant was designed how it was. Humans just couldn’t fathom the sort of
black swan tsunami event that happened, when in hindsight we can see it was
inevitable that it would happen. I’m trying to apply this sort of thinking to
my own problem solving.

~~~
abecode
Other reactors on the Japanese coast survived because they updated the
breakwaters after the Indonesian tsunami. So it wasn't really a black swan
event because another tsunami had happened a few years earlier.

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Pigo
Every time there is talk of pandemic, this is immediately what comes to mind.
[https://youtu.be/SQXqZ8JJktw?t=7](https://youtu.be/SQXqZ8JJktw?t=7)

Stephen King really tapped into one of our worst fears. I always thought it
was brilliant that it was just a strong version of the flu, and not something
exotic.

~~~
thebigspacefuck
Above link is “Don’t Fear The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult opening to “The
Stand” TV show, showing presumably dead people that contracted the super flu.

~~~
Pigo
I'm familiar with the etiquette of posting such links on here, I'm not sure I
ever have before. Thanks for the help.

~~~
maxerickson
Your post was fine.

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alkonaut
Does anyone know the cause of high mortality in the 20-40 age group?

Also: how much faster does a pandemic move now compared to 100 years ago
(Airplanes, population density)?

~~~
kwaldman
According to "The Great Influenza" by John Barry young people died due to
cytokine storms. Essentially young people have a vigorous immune system that
gave an aggressive attack. 1918 flu was unique in that the deaths was not just
the very young and the very old (a U shaped distribution) but rather a W
shaped distribution with the middle point being 20-40 age group

Also in the book - the "spanish" flu was called that since Spain was the only
place with a free press at the time (e.g., US press was not free at the time)
+ massing of young men in US in camps - like Ft Devens. Flu traveled from
overcrowded camp to camp and then jumped to local populations along rail lines
(and then overseas as troops were shipped out) He describes it well, though
would make a great visual as it moves from Boston to Chicago to NYC back into
Providence/Brockton (which are just south of Boston). Transmission along rail
(and shipping) lines.

~~~
UncleOxidant
Curious about the free press part. Are you saying that the US press was not
allowed to report on the flu while in Spain they did?

~~~
sswaner
I don't have a ready source, but the press in the US would usually comply with
a request to censor news that some in government worried would lead to panic,
blame, or accountability. Continued well into the 60's and 70's, and still
present today.

The latest edition of Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill podcast describes how NBC
agreed to censor his story on Harvey Weinstein.
[[https://podtail.com/podcast/the-catch-and-kill-
podcast/episo...](https://podtail.com/podcast/the-catch-and-kill-
podcast/episode-7-the-editors/)]

~~~
iguy
But IIRC there were dramatically more strict restrictions during WWI.
Certainly in all the european countries busy fighting. (Famously, Bertrand
Russell got himself locked up for six months for giving a lecture about
whether the US should enter the war.)

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EdwardDiego
Hmm, timeline is very US focused, I guess for obvious reasons, but would have
loved to seen more about how it moved about the world from its US starting
point.

~~~
WesleyLivesay
Definitely very US focused. Misses out on some of the areas where the pandemic
had the most devastating effects.

One interesting story from The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the
Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry:

"Freetown, Sierra Leone, was a major coaling center on the West African coast,
servicing ships traveling from Europe to South Africa and the Orient. On
August 15 the HMS Mantua arrived there with two hundred crew suffering from
inﬂuenza. Sweating black men loaded tons of coal into her, guided by several
crew. When the laborers returned to their homes, they carried more than their
wages. Soon inﬂuenza spread through the force of men who coaled the ships.
[...] The transport HMS Chepstow Castle, carrying troops from New Zealand to
the front, coaled at Freetown on August 26 and 27; within three weeks, out of
her 1,150 men, inﬂuenza struck down nine hundred of them. The death toll on
her was thirty-eight. "

~~~
tomarr
"The transport HMS Chepstow Castle, carrying troops from New Zealand to the
front, coaled at Freetown on August 26 and 27; within three weeks, out of her
1,150 men, inﬂuenza struck down nine hundred of them."

This doesn't sound right, so I looked into it. It could have been the HMS
Chepstow (Chepstow Castle seems to have been cancelled from Wikipedia), but
other sources [1] put the fatality number at 68 for that sailing which sounds
more realistic.

900 out of 1150 would be above Ebola rates and that would have been very quick
for such a mortality rate.

[1]
[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KYtAkAIHw24C&pg=PA38&lpg...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KYtAkAIHw24C&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=HMS+Chepstow+Castle&source=bl&ots=09REC1kDYM&sig=ACfU3U2ZJ17nrMpHB6Dh8jFbeabVuxOXNg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-
xbus067nAhXPTsAKHRXQCdwQ6AEwDnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=HMS%20Chepstow%20Castle&f=false)

Edit: Actually your source was correct, you just cut them off early which gave
a very misleading impression, it said 38 of them died. Always good to be
critical....

~~~
WesleyLivesay
You are correct, copy paste error. Thank you for the correction.

I have also updated my information above.

