Why Isn’t the 1918 Flu Pandemic A Movie or Cable TV Series?
One of the greatest mysteries to me is why exactly is the 1918 Flu Pandemic which killed between 20-100 million people worldwide, 2.5 to 5% of the worlds population at the time and 500,000 -675,000 people in the United States, basically forgotten about like it never happened. I mean doesn’t anyone find it odd that there aren’t any movies or great novels about this horrible event? After all, if there isn’t a movie or TV series about a major world event, did it even happen?
For some reason, the 1918 Flu Epidemic seems to be lost from out collective memory. I mean wouldn’t a TV series or Movie about it have been made by now as it has all the elements of a box office smash- the end of the world, the apocalypse, World War 1, human tragedy,Government Bungling, a Hollywood ending where the world is miraculously saved? I never heard of the 1918 Pandemic in school or from my folks or anyone and the only time I’ve ever seen it mentioned in the media was in background reference to current flu problems in the newspaper and a great PBS documentry: American Experience:1918 Inluenza Epidemic, which I would recommend to anyone who is reading this blog and is the basis of much of the historical information in the next paragraph. You can purchase this DVD at 2009 HDTV
Here is a short extremely rough general summary of what I learned about the 1918 Epidemic that may or may not be 100% historically accurate but will at least give you the gist of it. It is believed to have originated on March 9, 1918 at Fort Riley in Kansas where soldiers burned tons of manure and a gale kicked up and the fumes were swept out by a dust storm. On March 11, 1918, 100 soldiers turned up sick with fever, sore throat and headaches and by the end of the week that number turned to 500. 48 Soldiers died that Spring at Fort Riley. Somehow, the sickness seemed to have disappeared until the summer/Fall of 1918 when soldiers at Fort Riley and other people from Kansas were shipped overseas in tightly crowded troop ships to Europe to fight in World War I. The sickness then resurfaced in Europe from these Kansas soldiers and almost instantly soldiers from all nations including the US became infected and the virus mutated and became more fatal. When these soldiers came back to the United States, it spread again at our military bases. The general population then caught it and it spread exponentially. The Government and the general population did not seem to realize the seriousness of what was happening and when they did no one had any idea of how to deal with it. People wore masks which didn’t really have an effect but no one knew it at the time. Vaccines were developed but they were for the wrong source and scientists didn’t realize that the sickness was caused by a virus which science did not know much about at the time. Soldiers kept being shipped off to Europe and crowded bunched up ships amd got more infected. Hospitals overflowed and many Doctors and Nurses were in Europe for World War I not in the United States. There were not enough hospital beds and coffins to bury the dead. The dead would be placed on porches and dumped on the street to be picked up. People would be strong and healthy one minute and 12 hours later they could be dead. Basically their lungs were filled with fluid and they essentially died from the equivalent of drowning. Schools, churches, businesses, theaters, bars, restaurants were closed and the sick were quarantined and public gatherings were banned. Still the death rate kept rising and the people between 21-29, the strongest most robust people, were the most vulnerable not the old, very young or the weak. In some American military units, 80% of the soldiers died of the flu which became known as influenza. In spite of this, President Wilson continued to send troops to Europe. In October 1918, 195,000 Americans were dead from the flu. Officials thought that if things continued to spread exponentially, civilization could end. Then by November the flu mysteriously started to fall and disappear and somehow things started to return to normal. In November 11, 1918 World War I ended and the dying eventually stopped. The popular theory is that the flu had run its course and ran out of people that were susceptible and the survivors developed immunity.
Why don’t many of us know this all happened? The truth is stranger than fiction.
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