Paddy's Reviews > The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

The biggest takeaway from the book is this: Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. This book is a masterful account of the 1918 pandemic, the so-called “Spanish Flu” that was anything but. It is widely believed that a cook in a military camp in Kansas was the first case of the pandemic that would ravage the world for a year and take an estimated 100-150 million lives.

The author does a splendid job of telling the story. He takes us deep into the world of the scientists unsuccessfully groping for answers while trying to maintain scientific discipline in their efforts to identify and isolate the pathogen in their labs. He narrates the impact on society and the general public’s sense of complete helplessness and loss during those months with heart-wrenching anecdotes. He lays bare the corrupt venality of politicians and the stubborn bull-headedness of military leaders too ignorant to understand, leave alone contain, the epidemic unfolding across the nation.

The reason the pandemic spread across the world was the Great War which America had finally committed itself to in the face of internal pressure from the war machine and the tipping point caused by an intercepted communication from Germany to Mexico seeking to join hands in taking the war to America. Woodrow Wilson, who would prove to be a disastrous President that many felt eventually betrayed American principles by being party to the Treaty of Versailles, was helpless, clueless and powerless to stop the spread of the pandemic. Wilson’s willingness to draft virtually every able-bodied man into the army, pack them in tight quarters in training camps, and eventually putting them on cramped ships to Europe, probably caused more deaths, all told, than any other single man’s actions. The tragedy of the pandemic is that it thus took the very young from us. Ironically, Wilson himself would fall victim to the flu while in Paris to negotiate the treaty. He would survive but with the severe mental and cognitive issues that would also affect many others hit by the virus.

Perhaps the most astounding aspect of the government’s response to the pandemic in 1918 that resonates today is the complete lack of understanding of the pandemic by the national political leadership and the unwillingness to act decisively to contain the spread with the tools available. These same faults are painfully visible today as we struggle to overcome the pandemic of 2020. Then, as now, the government refused to publicly acknowledge the seriousness of the pandemic, continued to minimize the threat even as bodies piled up by the hundreds of thousands across the nation. In fact, Wilson went a step further, imposing strict censorship on news about the pandemic, and allowed anti-German sentiment to flourish under the cover of the pandemic response, ostensibly as a test of their loyalty to America during the war. All this may sound shocking to us today, and act as reminders that we are never far from fascist tendencies even in the most advanced democracies. A few years later, Japanese-Americans would be targeted after Pearl Harbor, and a few years after that, the Communists. Today it’s illegal immigrants, Muslims, Chinese industrial espionage agents, take your pick.

The world did not beat the 1918 pandemic. After claiming lives in every part of the globe - with some rare exceptions such as American Samoa- the virus mutated, turned on itself and died out. Scientists took more than a decade to even settle the question of whether it was a virus or a bacillus. However, as with every crisis, the work of pandemic-era scientists would gave rise to new advances. Laboratory research would lead us to understanding DNA as carriers, to institutional and policy changes allowing us to prepare better for the next pandemic, and more. The American Red Cross found its calling and came of age during the 1918 pandemic.

The author’s afterword, written as recently as 2017, is stunningly prescient. Everything he says about the next pandemic has come true and as I write this review we are living through it. Now, as then, politics is getting in the way of a coordinated and measured response. Now, as then, individual communities across the land are making decisions on their own to protect themselves. Now, as then, people are ignoring the advice of politicians who appear ignorant and are minimizing the threat. The failure of Philadelphia’s public health department to acknowledge the lethal wave of infections sweeping across the city, and the flagrant disregard for public health risks in allowing public events including a huge parade, led to possibly the highest casualty rates in 1918. They are chilling reminders to us that ignorant politicians are a bigger threat to public safety than even a pandemic.

The good news is that science and technology have advanced dramatically in the intervening years since the pandemic of 1918. Our ability to gather and analyze vast amounts of data with modern information technology allows us to make rapid and informed decisions in public health and safety while enabling researchers to accelerate their vaccine efforts. At the same time, we have new challenges to deal with - the rampant misinformation on social media, the strident voices of the anti-vaxxer movement, nationalistic and isolationist policies that could harm our ability to benefit from scientific breakthroughs elsewhere.

Now, as then, we may not have answers to the questions on the current pandemic for a while. By the time we do, the virus would have moved on to the next version of HN. We don’t know how long it will take for the virus to turn on itself or for the population to develop herd immunity. We seem close to a vaccine, just as scientists back then seemed close to a solution. There is a global race under way to develop a vaccine. The efficacy of the vaccine or vaccines, when they emerge, will be closely watched, as will its availability and access, not to mention its costs. That is the next test we have to prepare for.