Global Pandemics That Impacted America by Kai Brand

In summer 1918 it got so serious that they started researching it because it started to affect the war as many of the troops got sick and could not fight so it became a matter of national security so they turned the Rockefeller institute into a information gathering and communication center for disease. In Philadelphia there was a parade called the liberty loan parade and after that a lot of people get infected from the flu as they were really close to each other and it got out of control when doctors start to die. So many people start to die in Philadelphia that they ran out of coffins. They started to bury people in the graveyards in mass greaves cut wood to make the coffins but there where so many deaths there was not enough wood. Philadelphia was the worst hit city as they had 500,000 case’s. The New York government made it illegal to spit and not cover your mouth when sneezing because it got so serious. The newspapers tried to keep people morel by making the Spanish Flu not sound that bad but the people used obituaries to see how many people died and knew that it was serious as they also saw a lot of ads to join the red cross / the nurse teams to help out with the sick. So families also saw where the Spanish Flu was via letters and articles buried in the back pages. Some people started to make rumors such as the Spanish Flu is really a bio weapon released by German boats, or German owned Bayer corporation poisoned its aspirin with the disease, some other people around Phoenix, Arizona said that dogs carried the disease and that lead to Arizonans killing thousands of strays and pets. A cop killed a man who did not comply with the new flu mask laws. An evangelist Billy Sunday claimed that this was “ A punishment visited upon a sinful nation” and held a mass prayer meeting to end the epidemic. Some collapsed while praying. Some cities isolated themselves trying to keep the deadly flu away but could not because there were mailmen and milk boys. But people started to figure out ways to get rid of the flu or make people get better from it as they use new methods and that saved many lives as people started to grow more immune to the Spanish flu. But there was a last stand for the flu the war was over and people started to ignore the flu as they all wanted to meet their families who came back from war but it was too late when many more people became sick as they started get the Spanish flu because a lot of the soldiers had it and started to affect a lot of people and a lot of people died during that time witch was sad for some people as people might of came back from the war to just catch the Spanish flu and die from it .But after that a lot of people have much stronger immune systems and state to not get the flu any more and the whole pandemic came to a end. At the end of the Spanish flu almost 675,000 people in the United States alone died.