How the Coronavirus Pandemic Compares to the Spanish Flu | The New Yorker

[Music] when influenza came along National Public Health leaders said this is ordinary influenza by another name it was referred to as Spanish flu that was echoed in nearly every place in the country the Surgeon General said if proper precautions are taken you have no cause for alarm in other words they did nothing and they lied to the public your book describes a tragedy of unbelievable scale in the United States alone six hundred and seventy five thousand people died which is comparable to about a million point seven this is a 1918 what are we facing now how does this resonate with you this is your history of 1918 must play in your head all the time as you're watching television as you're thinking about what's going on a little bit too much right I'll let you know they're they're both respiratory viruses obviously fortunately this virus is I think considerably less lethal the 1918 unfortunately this virus is much more contagious the 1918 so even with the lower fatality rate which we're still not sure exactly what it is but it does clearly seem to be lower than 1918 you even with that lower fatality rate because more people are going to be infected we're still facing you know incredibly dramatic unfortunate numbers one of the most chilling moments in your book about 1918 comes when you compare Philadelphia to st. Louis what happened there Philadelphia was one of the first hit cities hit they again echoed the line that the national government was putting out there they had a huge Liberty loan parade scheduled virtually everyone in the public health community and the medical community wanted that canceled except public health commissioner he was part of the political machine and no backbone so the rain went forward and just like clockwork roughly 48 hours later the disease exploded in Philadelphia ended up with about 14,500 deaths if my memory serves - about two-thirds of them died in a 1415 week period beginning in late September 1918 st. Louis imposed all sorts of social distancing measures early and and had a much better outcome they didn't back flatten the curve a question there seems to be a minority opinion but it's one that I've heard come up in it and it certainly influenced at least for a while Boris Johnson's thinking in UK other heard of me or anything yes the idea is you let the influenza sweep through the community the death rate is higher but you haven't destroyed your economy because if you destroy your economy the downstream effects of that are even worse on the public health that a prolonged depression would lead to all kinds of horrible public health consequences even worse than the flu what do you think of that rationale well I think it's a legitimate question to ask the question is what price you going to have to pay to get there right now I think it looks like the number of deaths that might occur would be high enough that that would argue against that approach I actually to agree with Trump on one thing and that is once we get past this I think the economy will surge there are still going to be unfortunately tremendous number of dislocated workers you know hopefully Congress as we are taping this Congress is trying to figure out what they were going to do hopefully that will be addressed something like I heard you know Schumer say the government should guarantee four to six months of full compensation for those who are unemployed and if we do that that will significantly minimize the economic impact and again there will be demand for every thing once we get through the cycle and we will get through this cycle obviously the only way that this virus disappears and it's just real eradication is not that's not going to happen this virus is here forever right it is either through herd immunity where the vast majority of people are immune in some way having had it or vaccine comes along and protects a huge number of people right below that with the vaccine that's at least a year out herd immunity nobody really wants to absorb the losses that come with that so how do you see the waves of this occurring over the you know I guess to be a historian is by definition to have the luxury not to predict the future but rather to examine the past but indulge us for for this one time how do you expect to see this in terms of the science in terms of the virus itself playing out in the next year or two or three if we can quote flatten the curve phrase you've never heard right and if the healthcare system can function well then we will accomplished a lot you know I would expect to see this come and go we may get lucky most viruses do in fact in high humidity and high heat do less well outside the body so we may get arrested and as summer comes but I would expect to see essentially several waves of this waves of this scale I would I would expect to see up and down up and down at least several cycles of that and I would think the next cycle would probably be less and then less you you wrote recently in the New York Times whether we use that time well meaning the time that we have to get out in front of this although weird however belatedly we're whether we use that time well will determine whether a month from now the United States looks like Italy where the virus seems out of control where South Korea which seems to have gained control by testing whether 270,000 of its 51 million people just the United States now resemble Italy more than it does South Korea well on the plus side I think we've instituted the social distancing much earlier than Italy they started out with quarantine but it was in extremely leaky quarantine so it really had no effect in terms of testing obviously were way way way way behind you can't isolate someone if you don't know they're sick you can't trace your contacts if you don't know they're sick I have a lot of concern I'm over 70 so I'm target audience my wife's over 70 she's the target audience if you're infected with the virus it could take anywhere from 2 to 14 days before you get sick it's important than that point be made to everyone so that they won't lose heart when they think that we're doing all these things and yet the case counts are still going up there's a real time lag between the institution of any restrictions and any benefit that we see real keys to success is compliance if people don't heed the advice then we're in trouble what do you recommend as people are trying to live their lives and be as safe as possible what are the key things that you recommend in New York with your great historical knowledge and your knowledge of what's going on now I would say what's going in what we are doing what most of us are doing anyway the social distancing that doesn't mean you can't communicate with people you can communicate over the Internet I was just walking through the French Quarter people you know stopping on the street from different sides of the street talking across you know and there's actually a good feeling when you have that human connection I think it's very important you [Music]

Channel: The New Yorker

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Keywords: coronavirus, covid-19, pandemic, spanish flu, john barry spanish flu, the new yorker, the new yorker coronavirus, coronavirus the new yorker, coronavirus new yorker, spanish flu coronavirus, coronavirus spanish flu, new yorker, david remnick the new yorker, how covid compares to the spanish flu, covid spanish flu, spanish flu and covid, covid-19 spanish flu, covid compared to spanish flu, coronavirus compared to spanish flu, how covid compares to spanish flu

Id: feN_YwsQg5A

Length: 8min 44sec (524 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 25 2020