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This Padlet informs you about the 1918 Flu Pandemic, known as "The Spanish Flu". Below, you find 30 facts about the flu, its consequences, the victims, its course, and the center.

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An unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.

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In 2008, researchers announced they’d discovered what made the 1918 flu so deadly: A group of three genes enabled the virus to weaken a victim’s bronchial tubes and lungs and clear the way for bacterial pneumonia.

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Businesses were forced to shut down because too many employees were sick, and basic services such as garbage collection were hindered. Also, there weren’t enough farm workers to harvest crops.

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President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) contracted the flu in early 1919 while he was negotiating the Treaty of Versailles.

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More U.S. soldiers died from the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during the war. Forty percent of the U.S. Navy was hit with the flu, while 36 percent of the Army became ill.

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Even Spain’s king, Alfonso XIII (1886-1931), contracted the "Spanish Flu".

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By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end. People who were infected either died or developed immunity.

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A second, highly contagious wave of influenza appeared with a vengeance in the fall of 1918. Victims died within hours or days of their symptoms appearing, their skin turning blue and their lungs filling with fluid that caused them to suffocate.

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The first wave of the 1918 pandemic occurred in the spring. The sick usually recovered after a few days, and the number of reported deaths was low. The sick only experienced flu symptoms such as chills, fever and fatigue.

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A flu pandemic occurs when an especially virulent new influenza strain for which there’s little or no immunity appears and spreads quickly from person-to-person around the globe.

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The virus attacks the respiratory system and is highly contagious. When an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks, respiratory droplets are generated and transmitted into the air. Then, they can be inhaled by anyone nearby. A person who touches something with the virus on it and then touches his or her mouth, eyes or nose can become infected.

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In the U.S., citizens were ordered to wear masks. Schools, theaters and other public places were shuttered.

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At that time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain or prevent its spread.

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The virus kills through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system).
The immune reactions of young adults ruin the body, and the weaker immune systems of children and older adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups. In many victims, the influenza virus had invaded their lungs and caused pneumonia.

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How did it get its nickname "The Spanish Flu"?

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How did it get its nickname "The Spanish Flu"?

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To keep morale, censors minimized reports of illness in Germany, Britain, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the flu's effects in Spain, creating a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit.

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Life expectancy dropped by about 12 years.

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January 1918 – December 1920

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Native American tribes were hard hit. In the Four Corners area, 3,293 deaths were registered among Native Americans.

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In the U.S. about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died.

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In Japan, of the 23 million people who were affected, 390,000 died.

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17 million people died in India, (about 5% of the population).

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The virus has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history".

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An estimate says the virus has killed 25 million people in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people, while current estimates say 50-100 million people worldwide were killed.

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An estimated 10% to 20% of those who were infected died.

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Increased travel was an important factor for the worldwide occurrence of the Spanish flu. Modern transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease.

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There is evidence that the virus had been circulating in the European armies years before the 1918 pandemic.

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It infected 500 million people across the world, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million people (3-5% of the world's population).

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Some hypothesized the flu originated in East Asia.  Supposedly, the virus has come from China, mutating in the United States near Boston and spreading to France, Europe's battlefields, and then Europe.

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Work by a British team has identified the major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France as certainly being the center of the 1918 flu pandemic.

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The 1918 pandemic killed mainly healthy young adults.

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I hope you liked my padlet about the Spanish Flu.