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For the second time in just over a century, the world is about to face the winter break in the midst of a pandemic.
This year, like new COVID-19[feminine les cas montent en flèche pour enregistrer un nombre élevé aux États-Unis, les traditions de vacances fondamentales comme les voyages interétatiques et les réunions de famille à l’intérieur ont été remises en question. Les Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a conseillé des familles américaines de ne pas dîner avec qui que ce soit en dehors de leur foyer pour Thanksgiving, alors que certaines villes suivent l’exemple de l’Europe en imposant de nouvelles restrictions de verrouillage.
Mais fin novembre 1918 – après une souche de grippe appelée Grippe espagnole avait tué près de 300 000 Américains en quelques mois – les perspectives de vacances étaient très différentes. Les nouveaux cas chutaient. La Première Guerre mondiale était terminée. Les troupes retournaient dans leurs familles – et les Américains étaient prêts à faire la fête.
“Il y avait définitivement un message mitigé après Jour de l’Armistice [Nov. 11, 1918]Nancy Tomes, a history professor who studies public health at Stony Brook University in New York City, told Live Science. There was residual concern about large public gatherings, and some cities issued stern warnings ahead of the holidays. But there was also this tremendous confusion of gratitude that the war was finally over. The dominant tone of the audience was: Be thankful, celebrate that we have been through this national emergency, go to church, say your prayers. “
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But even as Americans celebrated and took care of their physical and psychological needs, a new wave of infections was looming just around the corner. For some communities, this would prove to be devastating.
Burning like wildfire
The 1918 influenza pandemic was one of the deadliest the world has ever seen, ultimately infecting about a third of the world’s population and killing more than 50 million people.
Unlike the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Spanish flu has hit America in four distinct peaks, with new infections drastically decreasing between them. The first wave hit in March 1918 and was relatively mild; CDC records show that the United States reported around 75,000 flu-related deaths in the first six months of 1918, up from 63,000 during the same period in 1915 (modern medicine helped halve those numbers; during flu season 2018-2019 America reported 34,000 flu-related deaths).
The second wave, which began in September, turned out to be much more deadly.
“Great influenza’ tears across the United States starting in late September, and by mid-November it’s done in most of the United States, “Tomes said.” It moves fast and it burns.
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Between September and December 1918, more than 290,000 Americans died from flu-related illness, up from just 26,000 during the same period in 1915, the CDC reported. Deaths peaked in October, with an estimated 195,000 Americans killed in that month alone. (In Canada, which traditionally celebrates Thanksgiving in October, the holiday was officially postponed until December.)
The entire United States was already rationing food and limiting spending to aid the war effort, but many cities have encountered the virus with other restrictions that would seem familiar today – such as lockdowns, mask and social distancing requirements – and a few that wouldn’t. looks so familiar, like the one in New York repression of public spitting at the time. Cities with lax restrictions were the hardest hit; infamously, a September 28 parade to promote war links in Philadelphia became a widespread event that resulted in over 12,000 flu deaths in a month, according to the University of Pennsylvania.
As cases tumbled in early November, the nation’s attention turned to victory, Tomes said. As Crosscut reported, newspapers like the Seattle Times falsely declared victory over influenza and victory in Europe simultaneously, with city officials quickly ending lockdowns and social distancing restrictions. Charitable organizations organized dinners for thousands of soldiers separated from their families, and the citizens of the country came together to “victory sings“and other spontaneous parties to celebrate the end of the war. Thanksgiving Proclamation In mid-November, President Woodrow Wilson urged Americans to “be thankful and rejoice” in their homes and places of worship.
“Everyone is celebrating this great patriotic explosion, and you don’t see public health officials saying ‘stay home’,” Tomes said. “Psychologically, people believed the pandemic was over. I think a lot of people are going through this now.”
The third wave
Looking back, it seems obvious that the third wave of the Spanish flu pandemic would follow a season of intimate gatherings and public celebrations. Tens of thousands of new cases were reported between December 1918 and April 1919, many of which occurred in metropolitan hotspots.
In the first five days of January 2019, San Francisco reported 1,800 cases of the flu and over 100 deaths, According to the CDC, and other major cities like New York, Minneapolis and Seattle have also been hit hard. Overall, however, the peak that followed the 1918 winter break was not as deadly as the fall peak that preceded it. The fourth wave, which began in the winter of 1919, also saw widespread infections in the United States, but not as much as in the fall of 1918.
It’s hard to draw specific parallels between this pandemic and COVID-19, Tomes said, because everything about it – from the nature of the virus itself to the world war that facilitated its spread – was totally different from that today. Even the culture of the time, constantly beset by the threat of deadly diseases like tuberculosis and scarlet fever, perhaps made Americans more willing to “accept that microbes are powerful agents of nature,” Tomes said. This daily risk may have made Americans more psychologically prepared for the toll of a pandemic 100 years ago than today, she added.
One thing that is clear, however, is that influenza cases increased after the holidays of 1918 and 1919, as did coronavirus infections. planned to soar again in late 2020 and early 2021. Despite the overwhelming air of celebration after the war, some cities have finally canceled their Thanksgiving plans as small outbreaks occurred. When public gatherings were banned in Richmond, Indiana, shortly before Thanksgiving 1918, a reporter from the local newspaper characterized the upcoming holidays as “a nice Thanksgiving with nothing to do.” Hopefully this is also the worst that can be said about Thanksgiving 2020.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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