Barry, John M. - The Great Influenza, Parts IV-VIII

[oyceter]

The pandemic begins! In the late winter/early spring of 1918, influenza begins to make its way through various military camps. Mostly it seems that while the number of cases and the seriousness of the cases was abnormal, it was mostly written off as a particularly virulent and nasty flu season, with a few outbreaks later in the year (around May) being even worse, with deaths hitting younger people and occurring within 24-48 hours of the onset of pneumonia.

But by August, it had quieted down. Then the October wave came, and it was really bad. Barry gives several possibilities as to what happened but mostly concludes that the original virus from the spring mutated to become more lethal, and notes that often the virulence of pathogens follow a sort of bell curve. They grow worse for a bit, but then gradually become less lethal, since you can't really get transmitted if you kill all your hosts too quickly.

Barry's descriptions of the October onset of the virus are pretty terrifying. Not only was it hitting mostly younger people harder, it caused bleeding out of multiple body orifices, and people's blood would be so devoid of oxygen that they would look blue or even so dark blue they looked black. The piling up of bodies, the way hospitals were overwhelmed all sound like some headlines from today, as do stories of the federal government playing it down, for fear that it would interfere with the war effort. Some mayors or governors were very blase and didn't shut things down due to the potential economic effects, while others, who were being hit by the virus, were asking the federal government for help and being ignored. It sounds like Woodrow Wilson never mentioned the pandemic at all, in public or in private, which is mind-boggling. And meanwhile, the press, pressured by anti-sedition acts, kept printing that everything was fine even as people could see everyone dying.

It sounds like the Public Health Service and the Red Cross were pretty good at organizing, but eventually there were just not enough doctors, and especially not enough nurses. It's irritating that Barry emphasizes here how important nurses were, because even if there were no cure, they could make people more comfortable, and keep an eye out for things getting worse about two weeks in to the illness. Except he doesn't talk about any nurses much at all! Then we find out that not only has Welch done no lab work for decades, he also comes down with the flu at the beginning of the second wave and doesn't contribute anything. But he still gets a chapter!

The other annoying thing is that the much vaunted "warriors" of Part I are currently all going down the wrong path and mostly determining that the outbreak was caused by a bacteria. It sounds like a few speculated that it could be a virus, but that got discarded fairly early. Here's the thing: I feel like there should be more stories about scientists going down the wrong path and building on other scientists' work because that is how you figure things out, and otherwise the story is that of lone heroes making miraculous breakthroughs. So this would have been interesting except for the fact that all these scientists were being lauded as lone heroes, to the point which other people doing organizing and caretaking are not ever mentioned by name. Argh.

- rachelmanija's write up of Parts IV-VII

On a somewhat off-topic note, I find it interesting that we all call influenza "flu" now and wonder how it happened. It's been interesting watching the nomenclature for SARS-CoV2: first being termed "the novel coronavirus" and then just "coronavirus" before ICTV named the virus and WHO named the disease, then COVID-19, and now a bit of a mix of things.

Even though I do it myself, it feels a bit weird calling it "the coronavirus," since it's actually just one of many different coronaviruses. I've seen some people nicknaming it "the Rona" or "Rona," but mostly on social media by people further from California. The press was going to "the novel coronavirus" and then switched to "COVID-19" once the disease was named, and now that it is in use so often, I've been seeing the all caps disappear. I think most of the big papers now use "Covid-19," and I've seen one or two places with "covid-19." I feel around Bay Area California, I've heard "covid" more often than not (and use it myself). I'm curious as to what will end up catching on and what other people are hearing.

Comments

[jinian]

I'm starting to hear "covid" a lot too, and occasionally "corona".

[oyceter]

Interesting, thank you!