Fear of the new coronavirus has health officials using ominous terms — social distancing, isolation, quarantine — practices not in widespread use since the 1918-19 Spanish flu, when some communities took measures to make themselves islands of the uninfected. Their actions, though extreme, may preview debates we will be forced to have in this country if coronavirus becomes widespread.
The U.S. military appeared to recognize this possibility in 2005 when it commissioned researchers at the University of Michigan to study a largely-forgotten chapter of Spanish flu history, involving seven communities that closed off their populations to keep out the virus.
Researchers found the seven closed-off communities experienced few infections or deaths — as long they imposed the restrictions. They did run into opposition in a country where freedom of movement is among the most cherished liberties.
Some are hard to imagine in America today, yet the actions taken by the seven communities in some ways resemble the extraordinary measures China has used to slow the coronavirus. Whole villages and cities essentially closed themselves off. Checkpoints appeared outside numerous communities. In Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter, authorities halted all transportation by train, plane, ferry and bus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later asked the same researchers to conduct a broader study examining the responses to Spanish flu by 43 cities, including Milwaukee. While not closing themselves off the cities used other methods to reduce crowds such as closing schools, banning public gatherings and quarantining those exposed to the flu.
Milwaukee employed its restrictions — known as social distancing measures — for 132 days. One example: Asking factories to stagger their hours to avoid overcrowding streetcars. Although some cities sustained their approaches even longer, more than half kept their rules in place for less than 100 days.
“If the measures were in place for a long time people really started to bristle,” said J. Alexander Navarro, who co-authored both studies and works as assistant director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. “Schools were closed, football games canceled, saloons closed, no church gatherings.”
Writing in 2007 in the Journal of The American Medical Association, the authors concluded cities that responded early to the threat and sustained their responses for longer periods saw lower death rates from Spanish flu.
John Barry, Tulane University scholar and author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History," said he supports social distancing but “The real question is how complete can you make it and how well can you enforce it? Now the Chinese have done it. And they’ve used a lot of force to do it.”
Graham Mooney, associate professor at the Institute of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said communities in 1918 had one advantage in confronting Spanish flu. Having dealt with previous outbreaks of scarlet fever and diphtheria, cities had a network of hospitals with a capacity for dealing with a major infectious disease. Today, we don't have that firsthand, even frequent, experience.
Depending on what happens with the new coronavirus, Mooney said, health officials may find themselves having to consider options they have not employed in a long time.
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That also includes the ww visiting preppers!
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