The Great Influenza - book - insights

 

just finished reading this book

Few insights
1918 influenza happened in 3 waves
Spring 1918 (March) - The first wave
Fall 1918 (October) - The second wave. The most lethal wave. By Nov 1918, the second wave was over.
Dec 1918 - The third wave. Third wave was lethal but not as much as second wave. Late December 1918, the influenza receded from around the world.
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While the above 3 waves were most prominent. The influenza continues for the next two years sporadically.

Spring 1919 - in Feb 1919, influenza deaths in Paris were 2700 (half of peak of 4600 in Oct 1918 in Paris). In Feb, US President’s daughter caught influenza. In March 1919, another 1500 Parisians died.
April 1919 - US President Woodrow Wilson gets influenza. It affects his mind. It influences in how World War I treaty is negotiated and signed by him. Influenza usually affects brain quite adversely. This is the invisible havoc played by influenza.
Jan 1922 - quarantine in Washington state

In a city or town, the cycle from 1st case to end of local epidemic generally lasted from 1.5 months to 2 months.

In army camps, the men are packed so closely that it ran from 3 weeks to 1 month before it subsided.

People who were exposed to first wave usually developed immunity by second wave. Second wave usually affected second set of people. Gradually, the influenza mutated to become milder by each wave.

There are no reliable figures for total death rate. The range is from 2 crores to 5 crores to 10 crores. As per one estimate, death toll in Indian subcontinent alone may have been 2 crores.

In the US, 6.75 lakh people died out of 10.5 crore population in the US then.

It led to 0.65% deaths in US. In Italy, death rate was 1% of their population. Surprisingly, Italy had the highest death rate among developed nations even then like now.

The 1918 influenza mostly affected people less than 40 years age unlike the present one which affects mostly old people. Perhaps, in 1918, the old people may got some immunity because of the 1880-90 flu (my view). Perhaps, now old people are dying and young people have immunity because young people have been vaccinated by various vaccines like polio etc which may be proving some immunity. While the old people may not have had such vaccines.

In the afterword, the author mentions SARs was infinitely easier to control than influenza.

He further mentions that Manufacturing and distributing a vaccine would take months at best and ativiral drugs are not very effective.