“Stay informed.”
That was part of the advice Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen offered at Friday’s press conference announcing the first presumed COVID-19 coronavirus case in the state.
Allen, it seemed, has learned from history.
With Americans increasingly nervous about what to expect from the novel coronavirus pandemic, public-health experts and historians have pointed to the worldwide 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak as an example of what not to do.
The response from many governments as that pandemic quickly spread: silence.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was among the world leaders who made no statement about the Spanish flu in the fall of 1918.
CORONAVIRUS IN OREGON: FULL COVERAGE
The main reason for the dearth of information: The world was at war. Governments were wary of giving any appearance of weakness -- the outbreak took off in army camps -- and so lied about the pandemic’s impact on their countries or even denied its existence.
The results were devastating. The Spanish flu killed more than 50 million people -- at a time when the world’s population was around 1.8 billion. This death toll included more than 675,000 Americans.
The U.S. government’s early response to the pandemic was to declare the Spanish flu an “ordinary influenza by another name,” The Washington Post pointed out this week.
It was, of course, an extraordinary influenza, one that was unusually hard on young adults.
But the American press accepted the government’s initial wartime spin and insisted there was little to worry about.
Which was why Philadelphia went ahead with a parade celebrating the war effort. Some 200,000 people turned out for the event on Sept. 28, 1918, waving at and cheering for newly arrived sailors marching in the event.
The flu outbreak hit the City of Brotherly Love a couple of days later, ultimately killing some 12,000 people in about six weeks.
Other municipalities learned from this disaster, recognizing that knowledge was power -- for those trying to avoid getting sick.
In October, Portland’s mayor, George Baker, put restrictions on store hours and closed schools, churches and “public places of meetings.”
Three months later, Rose City business leaders weighed a “redoubled quarantine of all influenza cases” and even sealing off the city completely for 30 days. They allowed reporters to be in the room for their deliberations.
And at the end of January 1919, Oregon state public-health officials showed just how much they valued the free flow of information. They ordered seven “prominent physicians of Portland” to be arrested for failing to report influenza cases in the city. Those facing arrest included Capt. Frederick C. Vogt, head of the medical corps at the Vancouver Barracks.
On the same day that The Oregonian reported the planned arrests of the doctors, local officials announced that it appeared Multnomah County had turned the corner on the flu outbreak, noting that 11 deaths had been reported the previous day but there had been only 64 new cases of influenza.
Around 3,500 Oregonians died from the Spanish flu during the 1918-19 pandemic.
-- Douglas Perry
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