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The Fight Against COVID-19 and the Lessons of 1918
The Fight Against COVID-19 and the Lessons of 1918 A Conversation with John Barry
It’s not often that a book becomes a #1 New York Times bestseller 15 years after being published, but that’s what happened earlier this spring to a book written by historian John Barry that was first published in 2005.
Called “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” it is an account of the deadly virus that swept across America and the world in the winter of 1918, killing more people in 24 weeks than AIDS killed in 24 years, and more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century.
In total, as many as 100 million people died around the globe, succumbing to a horrifying disease that not only often left its victims bleeding from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths, but also saw them turn a ghastly shade of dark blue because of the oxygen that was being stolen from their blood.
The outbreak occurred in the waning months of World War I, and the story Barry tells is of a country focused on one conflict and consumed by another. Caught off guard and unprepared for the pandemic, America’s leaders at first deny its existence and then downplay its severity, lest the Great Influenza get in the way of the effort to win the Great War. President Woodrow Wilson never mentions the disease in any of his public statements, and cities and towns across the country are left to fend for themselves.
When Barry’s book was released, then-President George W. Bush was so affected by it that he launched an unprecedented three-year effort to prepare the country for the next outbreak. “A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire,” he said at the time. “If caught early it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it.”
As the United States continues its battle against COVID-19 and tries to contain the same type of viral inferno that President Bush talked about, the Forum spoke with John Barry about the great influenza pandemic that paralyzed our country 102 years ago and the lessons it holds for today.
Forum: As we head into the fall, would you say worse?
the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic of Barry: The virus is actually relatively easy 2020 has been better or worse than the U.S. response to predict. What you can’t really predict is human to the great influenza pandemic of 1918? behavior. We’ve seen an ebb and flow here. Things
Barry: I’d say it’s been much worse. The reason will get bad in an area of the country, and people will is that in 1918, they really were take it very seriously, and it will caught by surprise. Obviously, get a lot better. Then they may science was not then where it is The virus is relax or some other area doesn’t now, and we were in the middle actually relatively easy pay attention, and it gets bad of a war. Today, we had ample to predict. What you can’t there. My expectation would be — warning, many, many more tools really predict is human depending on when the weather to use, a lot of planning, and a behavior. gets cold and people start going lot of preparation — all of which inside more — that things will get were pretty much thrown out the worse. If people behave properly, window. So I would say it’s much worse this time around. it is possible that the case counts will get lower. That would be wonderful. I don’t think that will happen,
Forum: Based on America’s response so far, but it is certainly a possibility. what do you expect this fall to look like with regard The amazing thing about the whole process is that to the spread of COVID-19? Will things get better the world has demonstrated the ability to control this for the country or do you expect things will get outbreak through public health measures to an extent
that I would never have imagined before this event occurred.
Forum: Talk for a moment about the importance of communications. Americans are more connected and have more information at their fingertips than ever before. How has the wealth and immediacy of information we have today impacted how people view the pandemic, particularly when compared to 1918?
Barry: As you say, the information is available. The question is, what source are you going to rely on? The biggest problem in this regard, of course, is Donald Trump. The irony is that if he had taken charge of this aggressively, I think he’d be in a very, very strong position for re-election. The only time his approval ratings cracked 50% was a few days after he said we were at war with the virus. People rally around a leader.
In Germany, Merkel’s approval rating hit 77%. She had terrible ratings before the pandemic struck. But she was straightforward and assertive and honest in her handling of the pandemic, and her approval skyrocketed. Incidentally, the German economy is in infinitely greater shape than the American economy because they got control of the virus. Of course, Merkel is not the only one who told the truth from the beginning and also got control of the virus. Many, many countries around the world did that. That was not the case in the United States.
For whatever bizarre reason, Trump saw this virus as a personal attack and responded as if it were a political enemy, first disparaging it as weak as he disparages all his enemies. Briefly, he would act like he took it seriously, but then he would step on his own lines. The result is that advice which public health experts unanimously agreed with was politicized. That’s quite an accomplishment, to politicize something like wearing a mask — and not a good one, not one to be proud of.
Forum: How about the media? In your book, you write about how the media did not report on the severity of the outbreak in 1918. How is the press doing today?
Barry: In 1918, they had an excuse – we were at war. There was a context that was very important. [President] Wilson did everything within his power to gin up patriotic fervor. It was quite successful. And the press engaged in self-censorship. In other warring countries, there was outright censorship on both sides. The U.S. had very effective self-censorship, which was helped along by a law that Wilson enacted which made it punishable by 20 years in prison to write, print, or publish any disloyal, scurrilous, profane, or abusive language about the government of the United States. They actually prosecuted a Congressman and sentenced him to 10 years in prison under that law. When the pandemic started and one newspaper was actually telling the truth, the Army started prosecution proceedings against the editor and publisher, although they dropped it as the pandemic proceeded. So the newspapers were part of the patriotic fervor. This time around, I think most of the press, with the exception of Fox, has done a very good job in trying to get the truth out to people on the pandemic. You look at CNN and Sanjay Gupta was on there every night for an extended period of time answering people’s questions and giving people very good information. The national newspapers — the Post and the Times — have done an outstanding job, I think. In most crises, at least in my lifetime in fact, the press has risen to a very high standard. I look back at September 11th, for example, and think the press then, both TV and print, worked really hard to get real information and good information out.
I think Fox has decided to play a different game, unfortunately.
Forum: Talk briefly about how the influenza pandemic of 1918 came to an end. Was a vaccine found? Did herd immunity develop? Or was it a combination of both?
Barry: There was no vaccine. They didn’t even know what a virus was. They knew that there were very, very small pathogens, which could pass through the smallest filter they had and they referred to as filterable viruses. They didn’t know if they were just really, really small bacteria or different kinds of organisms. Part of the progress in science that came out of the pandemic
was defining what avirus was. They did develop several knows how long immunity will last. It remains an vaccines against bacterial pneumonias, which if you open question how much exposure you need to develop happened to get sick and you had a pneumonia caused immunity. There are now cases of people who seem to by a particular bacteria targeted by a vaccine you got, it have been infected twice. But when you have millions might have some effect. of cases, that’s not really unusual. It doesn’t necessarily
What really happened was, in my view, two things. mean that immunity will not be long-lasting or at least Number one, the influenza virus mutates very, very lasting after exposure or vaccination. People respond rapidly, much faster than COVID-19 — or I should say differently to stimuli, whether it’s a pathogen, a vaccine, SARS-CoV-2. And my guess is that the virus mutated or any kind of drug. If the vaccine is pretty good, then it in the direction of mildness, which is the case for most comes down to how long it will take before it’s widely influenza viruses. At the distributed. I would guess same time, by the second that the earliest would be or third time that people late spring of 2021. began to see the virus, I know that there’s their immune systems were been some recent modeling much better able to deal on herd immunity that with it. It’s quite common suggests as little as 43% when a new pathogen enters of the population needs to a population, it wreaks be infected to significantly havoc. This occurs whether cut down transmission. it was the introduction That would be great if of smallpox, measles, or that were the truth — or I influenza into the New should say correct, since World in the 17th century, truth is a loaded term. That where these diseases wiped would be great if that were out Americans at much correct. But there are some higher rates than they killed Europeans; or whether John Barry recent studies in prisons that suggest that is not the it was in 1918, when in case, and that you need isolated populations which a much higher percentage had never seen any influenza of the population to be virus at all and 20 to 30% of This virus is going to be infected before you slowed the entire population die. So, number one, I think the with us forever. It will be a new down transmission. You know, 60 to 65% — which virus itself changed, and human disease. When we get an was actually the original number two, people were effective vaccine, then we can modeling estimate of Marc better able to deal with it when their immune systems probably get back to something Lipsitch at Harvard and some other people. And saw it again. akin to normal. herd immunity is not
Forum: Lookingahead, is not going away. It will how do you think the coronavirus pandemic will come continue to circulate.
to an end and when do you think that will occur?
immunity. This disease
Barry: Well, I think number one, this virus is Forum: So we’ve still got a lot more to learn going to be with us forever. It will be a new human about it, and we’ve still got a long way to go. disease. When we get an effective vaccine, then we can That’s sounds like what you’re saying. probably get back to something akin to normal. Nobody Barry: Absolutely. RF
