The Spanish Flu: the mistakes of our past
By: Adithya Vikram Sakthivel
Tags: History, Masks, Spanish Flu, Health, Covid 19

With most of the world’s population being kept under constant lockdowns due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals in the general public along with quite a few world leaders are under the commonly shared belief that it is about time we lift these government enforced draconian lockdown measures and travel restrictions, even though we still haven’t “flattened the curve”. It should be noted that lifting stay-at-home orders and other safety measures implemented in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic quite early can be more detrimental to world as a whole than advertised. A good example of mishandling a pandemic by lifting restrictions too early is the case of the 1918 Spanish flu (H1N1 influenza) outbreak in San Francisco.

Most scientists now believe that the influenza pandemic of 1918 was caused by a primitive mutated strain from the H1N1 virus (illustrated above) family

In late 1918, the city of San Francisco located in the West coast of California enforced a city-wise lockdown and compulsory mask wearing along with an early version of social distancing, when the Spanish flu pandemic rapidly spread across mainland North America in September of that year. When newly identified H1N1 influenza cases started dropping down in November of that year due to these safety precautions, government authorities decided to reopen this major Californian city and let their residents leave their homes mask-less. This unsurprisingly led to a sudden rise in the number of positively identified cases in the San Francisco region during December of that year, leading to the city government re-implementing lockdown measures and reordering their residents to start wearing face masks from the 17th of January 1919. It should be noted that noted that our understanding of viral infections was quite minimal during that time period.

Face masks were quite effective against both the 1918 Influenza pandemic (the Spanish flu) of our past and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

Similar to today’s anti-COVID-19 lockdown protesters, many San Francisco residents in 1919 purposefully defied government orders regarding wearing masks and following other safety precautions implemented to inhibit the spread of this viral influenza. These groups of people (surprisingly consisting of several doctors and other medical professionals as well) unified to form the “Anti-Mask League”. This organization was infamous for holding a 4,500 member event at a roller skating rink protesting the government orders regarding wearing face masks in public locations. It should be noted that due to these dangerous actions taken by a vocal minority, the total number of recorded deaths had exponentially increased during increased during this time period, resulting in San Francisco becoming one of the hardest hit cities in the United States by the end of 1919.

Based on the above-mentioned information, we can state with a high level of confidence that history is possibly repeating itself with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It should be noted that if we don’t actively take the necessary steps, we will be condemned to repeat the mistakes of our past.