Influenza pandemic 1918-1919



What facts about the Influenza outbreak did you learn from the text and what context for those facts does the text offer?

In the text, I learned that in the war, more people;e died from this Spanish Influenza pandemic than actual warfare, and while it hit the armies, it hit the citizens even harder. The context offered numbers in which to compare the pandemic with: 
"Most American soldiers escaped the horrors of sustained trench warfare. Still, during the brief period of U.S. participation, over 50,000 servicemen died in action; another 63,000 died from disease, mainly the devastating influenza pandemic that began early in 1918 and, over the next two years, killed 50 million people worldwide. The nation’s military deaths, though substantial, were only a tenth as many as the 500,000 American civilians who died of this terrible epidemic..."



A snippet from "The Bemidji daily pioneer" published in 1919 in an attempt to calm people of the reoccurence that might happen.
This source helped me to get an idea of how people felt after the original first wave of the pandemic. Just from this article, I can reasonably infer that everyone was in a panic about what was going on, so the press, ordered by United States Publis Health Service,  released a whole article explaining how there is now a high percentage of immunity and not to worry over mild symptoms. They also claim the reason for the spread before was everyone being focused on the war.




In the snippet from "The Topeka state journal" published in 1919, it seems to be a quick touch on questions and answers of what happens.
The article was helpful in a way it answered some of my own personal questions, literally what the snippet is of, but it also makes me think that because it is hidden within other big events that by this time people are still coming to terms with the disease and are left lost over it all still... Still, the little part of the article is informative in answering questions more than just that person might have.



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