Tho the Subtitle is Wrong

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History - John M. Barry

In 2004 the National Academies of Sciences awarded this history the prize for Outstanding Book on Science and Medicine. It is impossible to read it and not make comparisons with our experience since 2020.

The Great Influenza and covid have points in common. Both viruses originated in animals and made the leap to humans. Their mode of transmission is primarily airborne droplets. Both are primarily respiratory viruses, but infect practically every organ, with neurological impacts like brain fog, unfortunate cardiovascular outcomes, and peculiar symptoms like nose bleeds, pink eye and swollen testicles.

But there are differences as well. Covid killed the elderly, but the median age of influenza deaths was in the mid to late twenties. When we are younger, our immune systems are powerful – so powerful that it over-reacts with cytokine storm, which causes autoimmune problems. About 30-40% died directly from influenza while the other 60-70% died from secondary bacterial pneumonia.

Also, in 1918, ordinary people saw horrible disgusting deaths from influenza all around them. It was clear to most people that influenza was not “just the flu,” the refrain that dummies who never had the flu kept saying about covid. People in 1918 didn’t believe the lies the government and newspapers were putting out, unlike the 40% that relished down the nonsense and bilge Trump and his supporters coughed up.

Influenza was probably less transmissible than covid but much more virulent and its progress was much faster. That is, quicker than covid was influenza’s incubation period, how long the patient was sick, and how long an infected person shed virus. A person could feel fine in the morning and be dead of influenza that same evening.

A major factor in the high death toll for influenza was the fear and chaos created by the way the government handled influenza. Because the USA had just entered WWI, the government was determined to control the narrative and not let the country get depressed by the pandemic and then distracted from the war effort. With the hope of bolstering morale on the home front, Arthur Bullard, one of President Wilson’s publicists, wrote at the time, “Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms. The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little whether it is true or false.”

The press of 1918 was extremely complicit with the government telling falsehoods about and down-playing the pandemic. Nor did the country have a truth-teller like Anthony Fauci at the national level. Barry notes that when people feel they are being lied to, society starts to fray. Governments at all levels must tell the truth, and make guidance on masking, social distancing, lockdowns, etc. crystal clear. People can deal with reality a lot better than their terrible anxieties which their feverish imaginations and twitter can come up with.

The book is fascinating about the social and political issues key to the 1918 pandemic and the effect of WWI on American life in general. We were never the same country after WWI. Woe to the republic. The lesson we can draw on, I suppose, is the obvious one: it’s important to elect competent people of character to office. George W. Bush had the vision to invest millions in vaccine technology, a national stockpile, and plans for a pandemic. Barak Obama also devised plans for dealing with a pandemic (which Orange’s enablers and henchmen never consulted).