20/20 Vision

As a student of history, correlations between current and past events intrigue me. One hundred-one years ago, the world grappled with an unknown virus that spread like wildfire and killed, by many estimates, 100 million people in about eighteen months’ time. Now the world is facing another disruptive virus that, thanks to modern access to social media and the broadcast media’s willingness to inflame the situation, is creating panic not seen since 1919.

Influenza A was the official name of the 1919 flu, though it is commonly called “the Spanish flu.” When it first became a problem was in 1918, as America was gathering men from across the nation to send them to boot camp and then to Europe to fight in World War I. According to historians John M. Barry and Kenneth C. Davis, the so-called Spanish flu actually originated here in the United States, on the cantonments where American soldiers were being trained for war. In close quarters, the city boys and farm boys brought all their own particular bacterias with them, as well as their respective abilities or disabilities to fight one another’s contributions to health challenges, and what sprung up was Influenza A.

It spread between Fort Devens in Massachusetts and Fort Riley in Kansas as soldiers were transferred back and forth for training and deployment. The sickness erupted rapidly, and death soon followed. Modern medicine, such as it was, knew nothing of viral diseases. World-renowned doctors researched to find treatments or a cure. Nothing worked. America’s top physicians warned the President, Woodrow Wilson, that gatherings of people in large groups would spread the disease and cause massive outbreaks in the general population, but the President, in collusion with the media, kept the news quiet. Liberty Funds parades were needed to help pay for the war effort, and the President determined that that was more important than public health. Ultimately, he learned otherwise, but not until the flu had gripped every corner of America.

Due to the media censorship in the United States and throughout much of Europe, the world did not learn about Influenza A until it hit Spain. Spain, which was neutral during World War I because of recently concluding a civil war and not needing to be involved in the world’s issues, did not censor its media. Since that is where word of this disease first entered the general public’s knowledge, that is why it became known as the Spanish flu. It rightly should have been named the “Kansas flu.”

By the time the war ended, the tens of millions of war deaths were being outpaced by Influenza A deaths. The flu continued its rampage to the end of 1919, by which time treatments had been found, and preventive measures had been taken to reduce its impact. One can argue to pros and cons of the media censorship or its cooperation with the American President to minimize the public’s knowledge of the flu, but there is no doubt that societies learned many valuable lessons from the experience. Medical science made great strides during the time, and it has not looked back, except to review procedure and process for improvements in the present and future.

In 2019, some students of history looked back at the 1919 flu and considered it thoughtfully. We wondered what would happen if something like that came along again, but then we realized that it has already come along again. In 2003, SARS was a pandemic like the 1919 flu. H1N1 and H5N1, the bird and swine flus, have been pandemics. In those cases, the media has acted differently than it did in 1919, and so has the President of each time. Death rates have not come close to 1919, but since Americans look to their government for information and for protection, it merits consideration.

Here in 2020, America had high hopes. In the state of Maine, we are celebrating our bicentennial. In fact, that is today, March 15. (Happy 200th, Maine.) The year is supposed to have a presidential election between a Republican incumbent and a Democrat challenger . The economy has been booming for the last three years. The incumbent recently beat an impeachment attempt by the Democrat Party, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt his re-election chances. Many of the incumbent’s party believe that the media have been in the back pocket of the Democrat Party since his election in 2016, so they see the current pandemic coverage in the media as further proof of collusion between the two trying to end his presidency.

COVID-19, also known as the Wuhan Coronavirus, began late in 2019 but only became known around the world in early 2020. Because of the secrecy practiced by the Communist Chinese government, it took the bravery of ten Chinese doctors to reveal to the world the knowledge of this rapidly spreading deadly strain of flu. The American government already knew about the situation before the media picked it up, and the President had taken steps to restrict travel to and from China to minimize contamination. It went unnoticed because he did so in the middle of the impeachment furor. By the time Congress took note, the Democrat leadership found reason to criticize his move as unnecessary; they changed their tune as time passed but did not apologize for their earlier comments.

Since the American media got hold of the COVID-19 story, they’ve held nothing back, hyping every possible panic element and emphasizing all the dangers of the disease in the extreme. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have held regular briefings for the public to inform citizens of steps to curb the spread of the disease, methods of treatment, and so on. The government has not censored the media as President Wilson did 101 years ago. If anything, the easy access to information in 2020 fosters dissemination of misinformation in addition to the truth, and John & Jane Q Public must be more discerning than ever to know good from bad.

Looking back to 1919, 20/20 vision tells us so much about what should or should not have been done to prevent the spread of the pandemic. Of course, it’s easy to do that from the bird’s eye view. What will 2120 say of 2020, COVID-19, and President Trump? I won’t be around to know, but maybe someone will look at 2020 with 20/20 vision.