This Memorial Day weekend, it seems America is trying to decide a path.. and a history. Some are anchored into a position that the coronavirus is no worse than the flu–a mantra that many said prior to the March lockdowns across the United States.. Others are bemoaning the states and locations openings, pointing out incidents like a hair stylist in Missouri potentially exposing more than 90 people during a shift to COVID-19..
The NEW YORK TIMES is using Memorial Day to stake its position.. their front page is void of news and photos.. instead they are posting the obituaries of 1,000 dead of COVID-19..
100,000 is a terribly high number–and we are expecting that to increase in the coming months despite areas moving into what they consider a safer zone.. A potential second wave could mix in with typical flu this fall and winter, creating a harsh season of discontent..
Many are quick to compare this pandemic to those of the past, and often look to 1918 through 1920.. During the Spanish flu, about 500 million people acquired the virus, and about 50 million people died worldwide.
The 2009 swine flu was the most modern, and it was suspected that more than 1 billion people had that ailment.. but the virus only reportedly claim the lives of less than 13,000 Americans, despite the high infection rate.
While the these outbreaks get the most attention in historical context, there have been other pandemics that have caused the nation to pause in lockdown. Such as 1957 when prominent physicians and health officials were warning the population about a “silent invader” known as Asian Influenza:
By December 1957, the worst seemed to be over.
However, during January and February 1958, there was another wave of illness, especially among the elderly.
This is an example of the potential “second wave” of infections that can develop during a pandemic.
Walter Reed Army of Institute of Research, found that the only people who had antibodies to the virus were elderly survivors of another pandemic from 1889.
The disease infects one group of people first, infections appear to decrease and then infections increase in a different part of the population.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 died as a result of the Asian Influenza..
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HONG KONG FLU-EY
About a decade later, another strain was suddenly filling the world’s hospitals with patients.. This new pandemic was circling the nation just as 60s rebellion was.. just as Charles Manson’s ‘family’ was on a murderous path in Tinseltown.. just as the Vietnam War sliced the nation in half.. bras burned. Woodstock’s mud.. It would go on to kill over 100,000 Americans and even hospitalize an American president .. It was the dreaded Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968..
It was July of 1968 when scientists sounded the alarm over a novel virus (formally known as H3N2) that emerged in Hong Kong with deadly consequences.
The new influenza strain had mutated into a deadlier version of the virus that killed 1 million people globally during the 1957 Asian flu pandemic..
Within two weeks of the initial outbreak in July 1968, 500,000 people in Hong Kong came down with the flu which caused upper respiratory infection, chills, fever, muscle pain and weakness. It was brought to the United States by returning soldiers coming home from the Vietnam War..
By Christmas all 50 states were infected with the H3N2 virus..
The Pottsville REPUBLICAN HERALD shared this news just 4 days before Christmas in 1968: (you can see the reminder at the bottom that only 4 days remain for shopping season)
And just like today, oddities and animals were affected.
There were news articles that whales were infected with the Hong Kong Flu..
And in January 1969, famous “Siamese Twins” were counted among the dead of the pandemic.
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In this photo, we see two scientists at the virus laboratory of Ontario Department of Health where Hong Kong flu virus was first identified hold up a photograph of the germ that killed 1 million people worldwide between 1968-1970.
Like today, some college campuses and businesses were forced to close due to outbreaks, though governments across the United States did not have aggressive mitigation or social distancing requirements.
The King’s College in New York City was one that died before Christmas:
From The United States National Library of Medicine documents
Newspaper articles chronicled the widespread college closures, slowdowns in business and industry, and threats to Christmas mail deliveries. In December, the Apollo 8 astronauts were vaccinated to protect them from pandemic influenza in advance of their December 21 moon-orbiting flight, and President Johnson was hospitalized with a respiratory infection that his aides said “could be called the flu.” National concerns were reflected in a December 19 New York Times editorial describing the pandemic as “one of the worst in the nation’s history,” bemoaning the “amount of discomfort and distress suffered by the millions who have already been hit,” and the potential for “billions of dollars” associated with treatment and lost productivity.
THE VIRAL PRESIDENT
President Lyndon Johnson spent the last last few weeks in office, recovering from the virus in December 1968..
The media then, unlike today’s 24/7 feeding frenzy, did not cover the event in the same manner that you’d expect.. They called Johnson’s battle with the pandemic a the “sniffles.” Doctors said he should simply rest.
The White House called it a chest cold and low grade fever…
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NASA astronaut and Apollo 8 Commander, Frank Borman was struck down with H3N2 while in orbit, halfway to the moon in December 1968.
He caught the illness from President Lyndon B. Johnson with whom the astronauts met before embarking on their mission..
As the Apollo 8 spacecraft passed the halfway mark to the moon, commander Colonel Frank Borman and his companions reported they were feeling unwell. On hearing their symptoms, one official in ground control remarked: “I’m not a doctor, but it sounds like Asian flu.”
Debate raged in Houston about what to do, amid fears that the astronauts had caught the H3N2 strain of influenza after meeting with President Lyndon Johnson – who had spent his final weeks at the White House fighting this disease – just before their mission.
By late September, the so-called Hong Kong flu had stricken Marines returning from Vietnam. By mid-December, the flu was knocking thousands of Americans off their feet. The 1968 pandemic claimed the lives of actress Tallulah Bankhead and master spy Allen Dulles, and President Lyndon Johnson spent one of his last, lonely White House weeks in bed with the flu.
It was not just Johnson, but also the Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
On December 18, 1968, Humphrey cancelled his planned speaking engagements after contracting the Hong Kong Flu and was bedridden. Unlike his boss, he did not land in the hospital.
Around the same time that the President was sent to the hospital, another warning for America was sounded just days before Christmas! MAIL COULD BE DELAYED!
The postmaster general Marvin Watson said that mail in California, the MidWest, and Northeast could be delayed because of high absenteeism in the Post Offices..
Severely ill patients were put on ventilators, often without any improvement. New York City’s blood bank was depleted, which forced hospitals to cancel both elective and life-saving surgeries.
Absenteeism in the workplace was up 50% in the United States, garbage collectors in West Germany had to bury bodies because the undertakers couldn’t keep up with the demand, while corpses in Berlin had to be stored in subway tunnels.
There are some reports that Woodstock, that famed music festival in the rainy cow shit of New York, took place in the middle of the pandemic.. That is slightly true. With a big asterisk.
The summer 169 festival took place in the middle of waves. There were no lockdowns..
And yes, doctors were on hand for the event, but not because of the Hong Kong Flu, but instead because of the sheer increase of viral pathogens in a crowd that size, as reported here by the New York Times:
MEANWHILE FLASHING BACK TO 2009.. after the Swine Flu Pandemic did not end up as deadly as first feared, TIME MAGAZINE presented this cover.. they warned:
‘YOU’LL BE WEARING MASKLS AGAIN’
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