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Another look at the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Today, we'll be taking another look at the 1918 Flu Pandemic through the lens of our 2020 CoViD-19 pandemic, specifically the coverage and information in the Holland City News Archive.

If we take the 2006 article written by Morens and Taubenberger (cited below), the pandemic's first wave (of three waves) wa described in the United States, beginning in March of 1918. What I find interesting about this is that the Holland City News first mentions the event in October, specifically the October 10 issue. I used the search engine on Hope's digitalcommons website, using the keywords "flu" and "influenza" in their 1918 HCN section.

Figure 1 in the article by Moren and Taubenberger show three distinct peaks in flu deaths: One in July, a second in late October or early November, and a third in late February or early March 1919. Going off of last week's article, we know that Holland had closed churches and gone into quarantine by October 31, yet a short three weeks before, the cities of Zeeland and Holland had reported no deaths: "Although Spanish Influenza has as yet claimed no victims in Holland or Zeeland, it has claimed a man well known in both places in the person of Prof. Herbert Keppel of Gainsville, Florida."

It's a stark contrast to the 2020 pandemic. I can wake up, and before I've even eaten my breakfast, be informed with the "latest developments on Coronavirus in Michigan" from MLive.com. As of 7am local time, the article has current stats and numbers on all confirmed cases and deaths in the state. While churches were cancelled in 1918, and special arrangements had to be made to deliver bulletins to church members, I can pull up livestreams of many different churches and access their bulletins digitally via their websites today. Holland City News only published once a week. I can look at Google Trends going back to 2004 and track the searches that Google has recorded for the term "coronavirus," which were nigh on nonexistent until January 2020, then skyrocketed between February and March.




Works Cited:

Google Trends, trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=coronavirus&geo=US.

Holland City News, "Holland City News, Volume 47, Number 41: October 10, 1918" (1918). Holland City News: 1918. 41. https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/hcn_1918/41

Holland City News, "Holland City News, Volume 47, Number 44: October 31, 1918" (1918). Holland City News: 1918. 44. https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/hcn_1918/44

Morens, David M. and Taubenberger, Jeffery K. 1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics. Bethesda, MD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979_article

Taylor tdesorme@mlive.com - https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/04/wednesday-april-8-latest-developments-on-coronavirus-in-michigan.html?utm_campaign=mlive_sf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter


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