100 years ago The Spanish Flu killed 20-50 million people worldwide.

[MarathonMike]

Let's be thankful that Coronavirus is not nearly as deadly or contagious as the Spanish Flu. It also had the insidious trait of being worse for healthy people as it caused an over-reaction to strong immune systems. It must have been like living in a nightmare having just come through the ravages of World War 1 only to be faced with a global pandemic that ended up killing more people than the war.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

 

[harmonica]

....if a virus is deadly--especially '' killing quickly'', killing the victim means killing itself--less chance of it spreading
.AIDS is a ''slow killer''--so it lives longer, spreading more easily--and without victims knowing ''sooner''
..we have much better medical response/communication, etc now--so I would not be worried about a deadly flu

 

[georgephillip]

11 March 2020
102 years ago today:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in...0aa0d3508b0c6f31128ef52b59ef5f3aceffd9f083f5e

"Just before breakfast on the morning of March 11, Private Albert Gitchell of the U.S. Army reports to the hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of the cold-like symptoms of sore throat, fever and headache.

"By noon, over 100 of his fellow soldiers had reported similar symptoms, marking what are believed to be the first cases in the historic influenza pandemic of 1918, later known as Spanish flu..."

"The initial outbreak of the disease, reported at Fort Riley in March, was followed by similar outbreaks in army camps and prisons in various regions of the country.

"The disease soon traveled to Europe with the American soldiers heading to aid the Allies on the battlefields of France. (In March 1918 alone, 84,000 American soldiers headed across the Atlantic; another 118,000 followed them the next month.)

"Once it arrived on a second continent, the flu showed no signs of abating: 31,000 cases were reported in June in Great Britain."

Spanish flu is one more good reason why the US should have stayed out of WWI.

Had the "peace without victory" movement won out in Europe BEFORE the US became involved, it is possible the Russian revolution would have spread to Berlin and London.

 

[there4eyeM]

...and if England had not lost the American colonies, it would have ruled the world, thus no Napoleon, no WWI or WWII, no Soviet Union...

 

[georgephillip]

...and if England had not lost the American colonies, it would have ruled the world, thus no Napoleon, no WWI or WWII, no Soviet Union...

And chattel slavery would have died in the "Land of the Free" a century earlier.

"Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 (also known as Somersett's case, and in State Trials as v. XX Sommersett v Steuart) is a famous judgment of the Court of King's Bench in 1772 on labour law and human rights,[1] which held that chattel slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales, although the position elsewhere in the British Empire was left ambiguous."

Somerset v Stewart - Wikipedia

 

[whitehall]

Today's relatively mild virus strain seems to kill the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. Wilson's Flu epidemic brought back by Doughboys after the adventure in Europe killed mostly kids. President Wilson had a severe stroke and nobody was actually in charge at the time so the strategy was to let the disease run it's course.

 

[waltky]

And we made it through that.

 

[Likkmee]

Toilet paper was even harder to come by in those terrible timez

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Let's be thankful that Coronavirus is not nearly as deadly or contagious as the Spanish Flu.

By all data, it is both more deadly and more contagious than the Spanish Flu. Where are you getting your disinformation?

 

[L.K.Eder]

should have been named kansas flu. thanks for bringing the virus to europe.

 

[MarathonMike]

Let's be thankful that Coronavirus is not nearly as deadly or contagious as the Spanish Flu.

By all data, it is both more deadly and more contagious than the Spanish Flu. Where are you getting your disinformation?

OMG do some research dude. You just made a fool of yourself.

 

[bodecea]

Let's be thankful that Coronavirus is not nearly as deadly or contagious as the Spanish Flu. It also had the insidious trait of being worse for healthy people as it caused an over-reaction to strong immune systems. It must have been like living in a nightmare having just come through the ravages of World War 1 only to be faced with a global pandemic that ended up killing more people than the war.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

Yes it did...and one of the lessons that (most of us) we learned about about social distancing.

 

[georgephillip]

Wilson's Flu epidemic brought back by Doughboys after the adventure in Europe killed mostly kids. P

The flu began on US military bases before spreading to Europe:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in...0aa0d3508b0c6f31128ef52b59ef5f3aceffd9f083f5e

"The initial outbreak of the disease, reported at Fort Riley in March, was followed by similar outbreaks in army camps and prisons in various regions of the country.

"The disease soon traveled to Europe with the American soldiers heading to aid the Allies on the battlefields of France. (In March 1918 alone, 84,000 American soldiers headed across the Atlantic; another 118,000 followed them the next month.)

"Once it arrived on a second continent, the flu showed no signs of abating: 31,000 cases were reported in June in Great Britain.

"The disease was soon dubbed the Spanish flu due to the shockingly high number of deaths in Spain (some 8 million, it was reported) after the initial outbreak there in May 1918."

 

[MarathonMike]

Today's relatively mild virus strain seems to kill the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. Wilson's Flu epidemic brought back by Doughboys after the adventure in Europe killed mostly kids. President Wilson had a severe stroke and nobody was actually in charge at the time so the strategy was to let the disease run it's course.

There was no strategy. It was the worst possible virus with helpless doctors and nurses watching healthy people choke to death on their own blood and mucus within 24 hours of the first symptoms.