Quote:
Originally Posted by Tmarkwald
Spanish flu was the last time there was a pandemic and the governments responded similarly, except there never was a vaccine, and millions perished.
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From the Baltimore Sun:
"“It was called the Spanish flu. But that was only because Spain, which was not at war, allowed the press to report on it openly. Unlike here. ... The nation wasn’t told.
“A year earlier, President Woodrow Wilson had rammed through Congress the Sedition Act, making it a crime to say or publish anything negative that would affect the war effort.”
According to Barry, “Wilson created what was called the Committee for Public Information. The architect of that committee said, 'Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms. The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.'"
"In the United States, you had national public health leaders saying such things as ‘This is ordinary influenza by another name.’ At the local level the same kind of thing was occurring. With deadly consequences. ... No more so than in Philadelphia, which went ahead with a huge war bond parade in the fall of 1918 when the virus was at its most virulent. Newspapers killed stories quoting the medical community saying don’t do it.
"So, 48 hours later, influenza exploded around the city," Barry said. "The result is, it's one of the hardest-hit cities in the world, and the mass graves being dug by steam shovels and so forth." The death toll in Philadelphia was about 14,500.
The 1918 flu epidemic and the end of World War 1 marked the beginning of a complicated social, political and economic matrix of events that continue to have an impact to this day."