Corona Daily 256: Lessons from Thanksgiving, 1918

“See that Thanksgiving celebrations are restricted as much as possible so as to prevent another flare-up.”

This message is not from today. An American newspaper Omaha World Herald ran it on 28 November 1918. It was a Thanksgiving Day during the Spanish flu pandemic. It is fascinating to read the 1918 newspaper archives. History can teach us so much.

*****

American Thanksgiving is a 400-year-old tradition. Historically, it was a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Families sat together to thank the Lord and eat well-bred Turkeys.

This day, the fourth Thursday of November, is America’s heaviest eating day. Tomorrow, American families will sit at a table and eat Turkeys with stuffing, sweet potatoes, buttered rolls, peas, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and coffee for dessert. This year, it is incredibly cheap, the cheapest since 2010. The whole menu for ten people will cost just $46.90.  

In 1918, the Turkey meal was exorbitant. The First World War, at that time called the Greatest War Ever, was over only sixteen days before Thanksgiving Day. People were euphoric, filled with patriotism. In his Thanksgiving proclamation, president Woodrow Wilson didn’t mention a word about the pandemic. In California, on 21 November, after a month of mandatory masks, the mask order was lifted. The jubilant crowds tossed out their masks on the streets. “After four weeks of muzzled misery, San Francisco unmasked and ventured to draw its breath. Despite the published prayers of the Health Department for conservation of gauze, the sidewalks and runnels were strewn with the relics of a tortuous month.” Said a newspaper.

American families celebrated Thanksgiving 1918 together, and then celebrated the Christmas holidays in person, too.

And the flu came back with a vengeance. San Francisco’s death toll doubled in January 1919. And yet in mid-January an “Anti-mask league” rally was held with 2000 people. The mayor James Rolph was against masks, and was fined $50. When the flu surged, Rolph blamed outsiders coming to San Francisco, after the city had successfully stamped it out.

When we call current times unprecedented, they are not exactly unprecedented.

By January, USA was engulfed in its third wave. The virus infected one third of the world’s population. It killed 675,000 Americans before subsiding in the summer of 1919.

*****

In 1918, there was no testing. Medical science had not yet advanced enough. Masks were mandatory in earlier waves. Social distancing was called “crowding control”.

By Thanksgiving Day, few vaccines were already available and administered. Unfortunately, the world didn’t know about viruses until then. The vaccines were made against bacteria, which were thought to be the cause of the influenza pandemic. The vaccines were crude and not very effective, because they were developed for the wrong organism.

*****

On the 1918 Thanksgiving, Americans were happy the war was over. In 2020, they are happy that effective vaccines will end the pandemic next year. However, vaccine announcements don’t protect, vaccines do.

USA has registered nearly 13 million cases, and 266,000 deaths. Now every day is a record in the number of cases, exceeding 200,000 a day. Daily, 2000 Americans are dying. Until Biden’s inauguration in January, 100,000 more may die.

Dr Fauci has asked whether people really want to travel in cold weather and sit indoors with 10-20 people for a Thanksgiving meal.

The answer to that question seems to be “yes”. The American Automobile Association projects that across the USA, 50 million Americans will travel by cars, buses, trains and air during the Thanksgiving holiday period from 25 November to 29 November. It is worth remembering that the initial global transmission of the novel coronavirus started with five million people from Wuhan travelling to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with their families.

*****

History can teach us much only if we are willing to learn from it.

Ravi