17 ms·

History of 1918 Flu Pandemic

124 points by chmaynard 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
EdwardDiego 7y ago
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.
- egdod 7y ago
  It’s not clear that it did start in the US.
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    Wiki mentioned this and also doubted it. China is another source.
    - SirLuxuryYacht 7y ago
      But so is Europe or Mexico or anywhere else. Citation that supports implicating China?
- mci 7y ago
  A while ago, I did a piece of armchair research on Spanish flu in Austria-Hungary [1]. TL;DR: the dates it occurred throughout the empire differ insignificantly. The linked blog post shows also a table with the week of highest mortality in North America, Great Britain, continental Europe, and India, copied from an old book. [1] https://marcinciura.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/tracking-spanish-flu/ https://marcinciura.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/tracking-spanis...
- WesleyLivesay 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    "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=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 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KYtAkAIHw24C&pg=PA38&lpg... 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 7y ago
      You are correct, copy paste error. Thank you for the correction. I have also updated my information above.
grabbalacious 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
  - RomanBob 7y ago
    0 person died from fukushima. meanwhile 3000 die per day from car accidents.
  - abecode 7y ago
    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.
  - MertsA 7y ago
    There's a couple things to note about the Fukushima disaster. They planned for a tsunami, but at the time the plant was built IIRC the scientific consensus was that a tsunami was caused by a large landslide underwater. They surveyed the underwater topology around the site, they thought they were building a sea wall high enough that any tsunami in that area would be too small to overtop it. The theory was improved in the years since the plant was constructed but no one ever went back and realized the implications for Fukushima Daiichi. It was not a new plant, they broke ground on it before they did on Chernobyl. They thought a tsunami was inevitable and planned for it, they just didn't realize that they were operating on a flawed theory of how tsunamis form.
alkonaut 7y ago
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)?
- dharma1 7y ago
  It's right there in the article - secondary infections, especially bacterial pneumonia. This was pre-antibiotics
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    Does that really explain why the 20-40 age group was affected more than expected?
- Merrill 7y ago
  >Laboratory studies on the reconstructed 1918 virus began in August 2005. A report of this work, “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus”, was published in the October 7, 2005, issue of Science.14 To evaluate the 1918 virus’ pathogenicity (i.e., the ability of the virus to cause disease and harm a host), animal studies involving mice were conducted. The mice were infected with the 1918 virus, and measures of morbidity (i.e., weight loss, virus replication, and 50% lethal dose titers) were collected and documented. For comparison, other mice were infected with different influenza viruses that were designed via reverse genetics to have varying combinations of genes from the 1918 virus and contemporary human seasonal influenza A(H1N1) viruses. These viruses are called “recombinant viruses.” >The fully reconstructed 1918 virus was striking in terms of its ability to quickly replicate, i.e., make copies of itself and spread infection in the lungs of infected mice. For example, four days after infection, the amount of 1918 virus found in the lung tissue of infected mice was 39,000 times higher than that produced by one of the comparison recombinant flu viruses. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-19... The referenced page goes on to detail how various parts of the 1918 virus contributed to virulence. I've seen articles that said that the reason 20-40 year old patient had more severe disease is that their immune systems were stronger, and that the lung damage is actually caused by the immune system combating the virus. The 1918 virus started out earlier during WW I. During that time, large groups of men were being transported internationally by troop ships. While trains and ships are slower than airplanes a journey from a camp in the US to one in France probably took under two weeks.
Pigo 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    I'm familiar with the etiquette of posting such links on here, I'm not sure I ever have before. Thanks for the help.
    - Pigo 7y ago
      ^not
    - maxerickson 7y ago
      Your post was fine.
- gdubs 7y ago
  That opening scene still spooks me — a potent mix of hubris and banality.

124 points by chmaynard 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

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.

egdod 7y ago
It’s not clear that it did start in the US.
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  Wiki mentioned this and also doubted it. China is another source.
  - SirLuxuryYacht 7y ago
    But so is Europe or Mexico or anywhere else. Citation that supports implicating China?
mci 7y ago
A while ago, I did a piece of armchair research on Spanish flu in Austria-Hungary [1]. TL;DR: the dates it occurred throughout the empire differ insignificantly. The linked blog post shows also a table with the week of highest mortality in North America, Great Britain, continental Europe, and India, copied from an old book. [1] https://marcinciura.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/tracking-spanish-flu/ https://marcinciura.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/tracking-spanis...
WesleyLivesay 7y ago
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 7y ago
  "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=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 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KYtAkAIHw24C&pg=PA38&lpg... 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 7y ago
    You are correct, copy paste error. Thank you for the correction. I have also updated my information above.

grabbalacious 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.
- RomanBob 7y ago
  0 person died from fukushima. meanwhile 3000 die per day from car accidents.
- abecode 7y ago
  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.
- MertsA 7y ago
  There's a couple things to note about the Fukushima disaster. They planned for a tsunami, but at the time the plant was built IIRC the scientific consensus was that a tsunami was caused by a large landslide underwater. They surveyed the underwater topology around the site, they thought they were building a sea wall high enough that any tsunami in that area would be too small to overtop it. The theory was improved in the years since the plant was constructed but no one ever went back and realized the implications for Fukushima Daiichi. It was not a new plant, they broke ground on it before they did on Chernobyl. They thought a tsunami was inevitable and planned for it, they just didn't realize that they were operating on a flawed theory of how tsunamis form.

alkonaut 7y ago

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)?

dharma1 7y ago
It's right there in the article - secondary infections, especially bacterial pneumonia. This was pre-antibiotics
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Does that really explain why the 20-40 age group was affected more than expected?
Merrill 7y ago
>Laboratory studies on the reconstructed 1918 virus began in August 2005. A report of this work, “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus”, was published in the October 7, 2005, issue of Science.14 To evaluate the 1918 virus’ pathogenicity (i.e., the ability of the virus to cause disease and harm a host), animal studies involving mice were conducted. The mice were infected with the 1918 virus, and measures of morbidity (i.e., weight loss, virus replication, and 50% lethal dose titers) were collected and documented. For comparison, other mice were infected with different influenza viruses that were designed via reverse genetics to have varying combinations of genes from the 1918 virus and contemporary human seasonal influenza A(H1N1) viruses. These viruses are called “recombinant viruses.” >The fully reconstructed 1918 virus was striking in terms of its ability to quickly replicate, i.e., make copies of itself and spread infection in the lungs of infected mice. For example, four days after infection, the amount of 1918 virus found in the lung tissue of infected mice was 39,000 times higher than that produced by one of the comparison recombinant flu viruses. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-19... The referenced page goes on to detail how various parts of the 1918 virus contributed to virulence. I've seen articles that said that the reason 20-40 year old patient had more severe disease is that their immune systems were stronger, and that the lung damage is actually caused by the immune system combating the virus. The 1918 virus started out earlier during WW I. During that time, large groups of men were being transported internationally by troop ships. While trains and ships are slower than airplanes a journey from a camp in the US to one in France probably took under two weeks.

Pigo 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  I'm familiar with the etiquette of posting such links on here, I'm not sure I ever have before. Thanks for the help.
  - Pigo 7y ago
    ^not
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    Your post was fine.
gdubs 7y ago
That opening scene still spooks me — a potent mix of hubris and banality.