The 1918 Influenza Pandemic Versus COVID-19: A Historical Perspective From an Italian Point of View.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has a major precedent almost exactly a century ago: the world-famous H1N1 influenza virus pandemic, sometimes known to the general public as the Spanish flu. From a history of medicine perspective, it is possible to underline many potential common traits between the two. In this article, hygiene and prophylaxis strategies are analyzed in a review of the most popular Italian general medical journals at the time of Spanish flu, Il Policlinico being the most representative of them. The analysis included 40 original journal articles as well as important references to the most influential coeval national manuals and international journals. The main issues in the context of public hygiene are prophylaxis with quinine and quinine derivatives, vaccinations, face masks, disinfection, and social distancing. We draw a comparison between these and the most recent international World Health Organization and Italian national guidelines on the topic. Sadly, little has changed since those times in terms of most of the prevention techniques, even with technical improvements, showing how shortsighted doctors and physicians can be when dealing with medical history. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(10):1815-1823. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306412).

A Centenary Tale of Two Pandemics: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and COVID-19, Part I.

Separated by a century, the influenza pandemic of 1918 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-2021 are among the most disastrous infectious disease emergences of modern times. Although caused by unrelated viruses, the two pandemics are nevertheless similar in their clinical, pathological, and epidemiological features, and in the civic, public health, and medical responses to combat them. Comparing and contrasting the two pandemics, we consider what lessons we have learned over the span of a century and how we are applying those lessons to the challenges of COVID-19.

A Centenary Tale of Two Pandemics: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and COVID-19, Part II.

Both the 1918 influenza pandemic and the 2019‒2021 COVID-19 pandemic are among the most disastrous infectious disease emergences of modern times. In addition to similarities in their clinical, pathological, and epidemiological features, the two pandemics, separated by more than a century, were each met with essentially the same, or very similar, public health responses, and elicited research efforts to control them with vaccines, therapeutics, and other medical approaches. Both pandemics had lasting, if at times invisible, psychosocial effects related to loss and hardship. In considering these two deadly pandemics, we ask: what lessons have we learned over the span of a century, and how are we applying those lessons to the challenges of COVID-19?

The "saddest repudiation" redux: Structural racism and the unlearned lesson of 1918.

The COVID-19 pandemic reveals how the systems and structures of racism devastate the health and well-being of people of color. The debate is an old one and the lesson we have yet to learn was tragically apparent a century ago during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Any history of structural racism in America must begin with the chronicles of African Americans, Native Alaskans, and Indigenous North Americans as they were the originally enslaved and displaced people, subjected to overt and covert policies of oppression ever since. The experiences of Native Alaskans of Bristol Bay Alaska in 1918-1919 present a parallel, illuminating a wrenching example of structural racism that cost lives and impoverished society, then as now. Proven policy solutions exist to remove the structures that produce inequitable health outcomes, but implementing them will require public health officials and policymakers to take multidisciplinary policy actions, to find policy opportunities for change to be made, and, likely, a change in the political environment. The first exists now, the second is afforded because of the current pandemic and the urgent need for policy solutions, and the third is likely coming soon.

To Protect Health Care Workers Better, To Save More Lives With COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has thus far caused a total of 81,747 confirmed cases with 3283 deaths in China and more than 370,000 confirmed cases including over 16,000 deaths around the world by March 24, 2020. This issue has received extensive attention from the international community and has become a major public health priority. As the pandemic progresses, it is regrettable to know the health care workers, including anesthesiologists, are being infected constantly. Therefore, we would like to share our firsthand practical experience and perspective in China, focusing on the personal protection of health care workers and the risk factors related to their infection, based on the different stages of the COVID-19 epidemic in China.

Social and institutional Reactions to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-20.

This essay challenges generalizations since the late enlightenment about the effects of epidemics and pandemics on collective mentalities: that from antiquity to the present, epidemics, regardless of the disease, have sparked distrust, social violence, and the blaming of others. By contrast, the pandemic that killed the greatest numbers in world history-the Influenza of 1918-20 - was a pandemic of compassion. No one has yet to uncover this pandemic sparking collective violence or blaming any minorities for spreading the disease anywhere in the globe. The essay then explores the variety of charitable reactions and abnegation that cut across social divisions in communities from theatres of war in Europe to nations thousands of miles from the direct military encounters. Most remarkable, however, was the overflowing volunteerism of women, especially in the US, Canada, and Australia. To explain this widespread charitable reaction, the essay investigates the milieu of the First World War, showing how that context in domestic war settings was not conducive to risking life to aid total strangers, especially when those strangers came from different foreign countries classes, races, or religious faiths. I end with a reflection on the unfolding socio-psychological reactions to Covid-19 from the perspective of 1918-20.

The Eighteen of 1918-1919: Black Nurses and the Great Flu Pandemic in the United States.

This article examines the role of Black American nurses during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic and the aftermath of World War I. The pandemic caused at least 50 million deaths worldwide and 675 000 in the United States. It occurred during a period of pervasive segregation and racial violence, in which Black Americans were routinely denied access to health, educational, and political institutions. We discuss how an unsuccessful campaign by Black leaders for admission of Black nurses to the Red Cross, the Army Nurse Corps, and the Navy Nurse Corps during World War I eventually created opportunities for 18 Black nurses to serve in the army during the pandemic and the war's aftermath. Analyzing archival sources, news reports, and published materials, we examine these events in the context of nursing and early civil rights history. This analysis demonstrates that the pandemic incrementally advanced civil rights in the Army Nurse Corps and Red Cross, while providing ephemeral opportunities for Black nurses overall. This case study reframes the response to epidemics and other public health emergencies as potential opportunities to advance health equity.

What Recent History Has Taught Us About Responding to Emerging Infectious Disease Threats.

Presidential administrations face any number of unexpected crises during their tenure, and global pandemics are among the most challenging. As of January 2017, one of the authors had served under 5 presidents as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. During each administration, the government faced unexpected pandemics, ranging from the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which began during the Reagan administration, to the recent Zika outbreak in the Americas, which started during the Obama administration. These experiences underscored the need to optimize preparation for and response to these threats whenever and wherever they emerge. This article recounts selected outbreaks occurring during this period and highlights lessons that were learned that can be applied to the infectious disease threats that will inevitably be faced in the current presidential administration and beyond.

The Work of US Public Health Service Officers in Puerto Rico, 1898-1919.

The history of the US Public Health Service (PHS) is usually presented in terms of diseases or discoveries; this article examines twenty years' activity in one location. When the United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898, the Marine Hospital Service (now PHS) took responsibility for foreign quarantine, inspection of immigrants, and medical care for merchant seamen. Its officers evaluated the sanitary conditions of port cities, helped reorganize local disease surveillance and control, and investigated endemic diseases (e.g., hookworm-related anemia) and epidemics (e.g., bubonic plague). After World War I and pandemic influenza, and the greater self-government allowed Puerto Rico by Congress in 1917, PHS officers withdrew from routine local sanitary actions. A narrow geographic focus (Puerto Rico), to examine PHS activity over time (1898 to 1919) provides a richer picture of the agency's impact, and reveals how the sum of disease control activities affected the development of an area's health status and institutions. The duties and, importantly, the personal initiatives of PHS officers in Puerto Rico, such as WW King, produced lasting impact on scientific institutions and administrative, professional, and health care practices.

A Tale of Many Cities: A Contemporary Historical Study of the Implementation of School Closures during the 2009 pA(H1N1) Influenza Pandemic.

Applying qualitative historical methods, we examined the consideration and implementation of school closures as a nonpharmaceutical intervention (NPI) in thirty US cities during the spring 2009 wave of the pA(H1N1) influenza pandemic. We gathered and performed close textual readings of official federal, state, and municipal government documents; media coverage; and academic publications. Lastly, we conducted oral history interviews with public health and education officials in our selected cities. We found that several local health departments pursued school closure plans independent of CDC guidance, that uncertainty of action and the rapidly evolving understanding of pA(H1N1) contributed to tension and pushback from the public, that the media and public perception played a significant role in the response to school closure decisions, and that there were some notable instances of interdepartmental communication breakdown. We conclude that health departments should continue to develop and fine-tune their action plans while also working to develop better communication methods with the public, and work more closely with education officials to better understand the complexities involved in closing schools. Lastly, state and local governments should work to resolve lingering issues of legal authority for school closures in times of public health crises.

History of Swine influenza.

Swine influenza is a continual problem for the Swine industry and can pose a public health threat as evidenced by the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus pandemic. Given its importance, it is not surprising to find papers describing the disease from the early 20th century. In this chapter, we discuss the history of Swine influenza, the important role swine influenza virus has played in our understanding of influenza virus pathogenesis and virology, and its impact on public health worldwide.

Worldly approaches to global health: 1851 to the present.

The tension between managing episodic, acute, and deadly pandemics and the arduous path to ameliorating the chronic maladies and social conditions that kill many more people, but in far less dramatic ways, has always shaped the agenda and work of the World Health Organization. Yet the historical record amply demonstrates how international efforts to control infectious disease, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and extending to the present, have dominated global health policies, regulations, agendas and budgets: often at the expense of addressing more chronic health and environmental concerns. How these challenges have affected present circumstances and created demands for an entirely new conception and execution of 21st century global health efforts is the focus of this paper.