1918

In this 1918 photo, Boston’s Red Cross volunteers assemble gauze influenza masks for use at Camp Devens in Massachusetts, which was hit hard by the 1918 flu pandemic. Submitted photo / Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

THE 1918 FLU

The 1918 pandemic was caused by the H1N1 flu virus; the most recent outbreak of the strain was in 2009, which resulted in fewer than 300,000 deaths, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control.

The 1918 flu coincided with the end of World War I, during which people were traveling frequently from and around Europe, contributing to the virus spread. Medical professionals were also in short supply because of the war effort, with as many as one-third of physicians deployed to military service, according to the CDC.

“It was a global phenomenon,” Lawson said. “It’s very clear globalization for World War I played a part in spreading it across this country.”

Vaccines did not exist, and no antiviral drugs were available. Intensive care measures, such as mechanical ventilators that have been critical in treating COVID-19 patients, also were not available — leaving doctors with few avenues beyond “supportive care.”

This flu hit the young and apparently healthy especially hard. Lawson said he’s visited Calvary Cemetery in Youngstown, where there is a section of hundreds of graves of victims of the 1918 pandemic, with markers showing a large number were young adults.

A Tribune Chronicle story on Oct. 22, 1918, reads: “A rapidly spreading pandemic disease was first recognized at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Mass., Aug. 28, 1918, the first patients coming from the receiving ship at Commonwealth Pier Boston, … it proposes to spread rapidly over the entire country, attacking between 30 and 40 percent of the population and running an acute course from four to six weeks in each community.”

That article, excerpted from a “an extensive study of the influenza plague” by Dr. J. J. Keegan in the Journal of the American Medical Association, states 5 to 10 percent of those infected developed fatal cases of pneumonia — which is also a complication of severe cases of COVID-19.