scholarly journals The 1918 influenza pandemic: Lessons from the past for a global community

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene W. Keeling
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Global Community ◽  
The Past ◽  
1918 Influenza

Pandemic Reemergence and Four Waves of Excess Mortality Coinciding With the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Michigan: Insights for COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-437
Author(s):  
Siddharth Chandra ◽  
Julia Christensen ◽  
Madhur Chandra ◽  
Nigel Paneth
Keyword(s):  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Excess Mortality ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
The State ◽  
Viral Pathogens ◽  
Monthly Data ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
1918 Influenza

The global influenza pandemic that emerged in 1918 has become the event of reference for a broad spectrum of policymakers seeking to learn from the past. This article sheds light on multiple waves of excess mortality that occurred in the US state of Michigan at the time with insights into how epidemics might evolve and propagate across space and time. We analyzed original monthly data on all-cause deaths by county for the 83 counties of Michigan and interpreted the results in the context of what is known about the pandemic. Counties in Michigan experienced up to four waves of excess mortality over a span of two years, including a severe one in early 1920. Some counties experienced two waves in late 1918 while others had only one. The 1920 wave propagated across the state in a different manner than the fall and winter 1918 waves. The twin waves in late 1918 were likely related to the timing of the statewide imposition of a three-week social distancing order. Michigan’s experience holds sobering lessons for those who wish to understand how immunologically naïve populations encounter novel viral pathogens.

Demographic and Evolutionary Consequences of Pandemic Diseases

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon DeWitte ◽  
Amanda Wissler
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Evolutionary Consequences ◽  
Catastrophic Disease ◽  
Health Experts

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has justifiably captured the attention of people around the world since late 2019. It has produced in many people a new perspective on or, indeed, a new realization about our potential vulnerability to emerging infectious diseases. However, our species has experienced numerous catastrophic disease pandemics in the past, and in addition to concerns about the harm being produced during the pandemic and the potential long-term sequelae of the disease, what has been frustrating for many public health experts, anthropologists, and historians is awareness that many of the outcomes of COVID-19 are not inevitable and might have been preventable had we actually heeded lessons from the past. We are currently witnessing variation in exposure risk, symptoms, and mortality from COVID-19, but these patterns are not surprising given what we know about past pandemics. We review here the literature on the demographic and evolutionary consequences of the Second Pandemic of Plague (ca. fourteenth–nineteenth centuries C.E.) and the 1918 influenza pandemic, two of the most devastating pandemics in recorded human history. These both provide case studies of the ways in which sociocultural and environmental contexts shape the experiences and outcomes of pandemic disease. Many of the factors at work during these past pandemics continue to be reproduced in modern contexts, and ultimately our hope is that by highlighting the outcomes that are at least theoretically preventable, we can leverage our knowledge about past experiences to prepare for and respond to disease today.

scholarly journals Looking back to the future? Possible pandemic scenarios from the past with relevance for autumn/winter 2021, and the years ahead

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaspar Staub
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Similar Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
Swiss Canton ◽  
Morbidity Data ◽  
Spanish Flu ◽  
To Come ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Autumn And Winter

In many places the current coronavirus pandemic is the most severe pandemic since the 1918 influenza pandemic (“Spanish flu”). In many European countries before 2020, past experiences with pandemics had not been sufficiently studied and were no longer present in the minds of the general public or authorities. This article highlights scenarios from the past that may offer guidance as we move towards autumn and winter 2021. High quality morbidity data from the Swiss canton of Bern 1918-1930 is re-used here and complemented with similar data from 1957, SARS-CoV-2 data from 2020, as well as temperature series for all three years. A first possible scenario that emerges from experiences in all three pandemic years is that the onset of the fall waves at the beginning of October, occurred 0-2 weeks after the first drop in temperatures at the end of September (calendar week 39). This temporal coincidence can also be coincidental, and does not imply causality. However, this risk is also present for the coming autumn of 2021, all the more so if the case numbers will not be low everywhere then because of the delta variant. When temperatures start to fall, people will stay indoors more, which will increase the risk of infection for the unprotected or only partially protected subgroups of the population. In the winter of 1920, the influenza virus returned in the form of a relatively strong “echo” wave probably due to incomplete immunization of the population and/or virus mutations, and thereafter in the form of milder seasonal waves. This is a second scenario that many experts also consider possible for SARS-CoV-2. We do not know yet what will happen in autumn/winter 2021 and in the years to come. However, the past at least provides some scenarios of what happened in partly comparable situations in 1918 and thereafter. To not at least consider these possible scenarios in pandemic planning for the coming period would be a missed opportunity.

scholarly journals Reconstruction of the 1918 Influenza Virus: Unexpected Rewards from the Past

mBio ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery K. Taubenberger ◽  
David Baltimore ◽  
Peter C. Doherty ◽  
Howard Markel ◽  
David M. Morens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Virus ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Etiologic Agent ◽  
Viral Rna ◽  
Rna Sequences ◽  
Severe Morbidity ◽  
The Past ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
And Control ◽  
Virus Biology

ABSTRACTThe influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 killed approximately 50 million people. The unusually severe morbidity and mortality associated with the pandemic spurred physicians and scientists to isolate the etiologic agent, but the virus was not isolated in 1918. In 1996, it became possible to recover and sequence highly degraded fragments of influenza viral RNA retained in preserved tissues from several 1918 victims. These viral RNA sequences eventually permitted reconstruction of the complete 1918 virus, which has yielded, almost a century after the deaths of its victims, novel insights into influenza virus biology and pathogenesis and has provided important information about how to prevent and control future pandemics.

scholarly journals History of the Military Nurse Corps and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Lessons for the 2019 Coronavirus Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A Talbot ◽  
E Jeffrey Metter ◽  
Heather King
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Patient Outcomes ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Primary Therapy ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Nursing ◽  
History Of ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
The Military

ABSTRACT During World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic struck the fatigued combat troops serving on the Western Front. Medical treatment options were limited; thus, skilled military nursing care was the primary therapy and the best indicator of patient outcomes. This article examines the military nursing’s role in the care of the soldiers during the 1918 flu pandemic and compares this to the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.

Closing the ‘blue hole’: Maritime history as a core element of historical research

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-332
Author(s):  
Ingo Heidbrink
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rates ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Maritime History ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Global History ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Core Element ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Blue Hole

The articles in this Forum are revised versions of papers presented in a roundtable session of the XXII International Congress of Historical Sciences, which was held in Jinan, China, during August 2015. In line with the roundtable format deployed by the congress, a broad proposition was introduced in the opening paper, followed by four responses delivered by experts in the field and a plenary discussion of the issues raised by the speakers. In this session, the proponent, Ingo Heidbrink, discussed the development of maritime history as a historical sub-discipline in relation to the emergence of world (and global) history. Particular attention was afforded to the comparative growth rates of these cognate sub-disciplines, and to the reasons why maritime history has expanded relatively slowly, leading to the emergence of a ‘blue hole’ in our knowledge and understanding of the past. The four respondents then addressed the issues raised by Heidbrink from their own disciplinary and regional perspectives. As Heidbrink’s ‘Concluding Remarks’ indicate, all participants agreed that, in itself, the allocation of a session to this subject on the core programme of the congress was a significant recognition that maritime history is a historical sub-discipline that is of relevance to the wider global community of historians, and not just those who are interested in the interaction of humans and the oceans.

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