PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The coronavirus pandemic has often been compared to the 1918 flu outbreak that infected about a third of the world's population and left tens of millions of people dead. One historian offered his perspective about that pandemic and the one we're living through now.
In his 2004 book "The Great Influenza," John Barry wrote about the pandemic that had its first wave in the spring of 1918. The third and final wave stretched into the summer of 1919. Barry said the first wasn't as deadly, the second was devastating and the third is similar to what we're facing now with the omicron COVID-19 variant.
"If you were sick in either the first or the second wave, it didn't give you any protection against the third wave whatsoever," he explained. "That third wave was not as lethal as the second wave, but it was still pretty bad."
A lot of the spread was attributed to the movement of troops during World War I. As for the mitigation efforts back in the early 20th century, there were distancing, business closures and yes, masking. There was some pushback, but Barry said it was taken more seriously back then.
"1918 was much more lethal. Much, much, much more deadly," he said. "It was killing children, it was killing people in their 20s and 30s. There was generally very wide acceptance of the measures."
Barry said over 90% of the lives claimed by the 1918 pandemic were people under 65, or as he said, "exactly the reverse of today."
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As far as vaccines, there were several unsuccessful attempts to create one back then. Now, we have several safe and effective options. Barry believes there are lessons we can learn from the 1918 pandemic.
"Number one, the virus is the boss. Number two, I think the biggest lesson from 1918, which has been confirmed in the last couple years, is to tell the truth. People in authority need to tell the truth," he said.
As Barry detailed, many newspapers downplayed the pandemic because of the war effort. And in Philadelphia, officials did not cancel the "Liberty Loan Parade" that 200,000 people attended, which led to a huge outbreak.
Almost 20 years after writing the book, did Barry envision anything like the current COVID-19 pandemic?
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"Well, you knew that there was going to be another pandemic and there will be another pandemic after this one and another one after that," he said. "I won't say I anticipated a response such as we've had."
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