-This debate over when to reopen,
pitting economic concerns against public health.
-It is 50 states with 50 plans,
many of them allowing more activity, more interaction.
-When and how to reopen parts of the economy
have become highly charged political issues.
-As coronavirus lockdowns begin to be loosened
across the country and people begin returning to restaurants,
offices, and outdoor spaces, memories of the past
are starting to echo in the present.
It's not the first time the US has grappled with the question
of when to reopen after a deadly health scare.
The flu pandemic of 1918
infected a third of the world's population.
Though several deadly flu outbreaks have followed,
it remains the deadliest on record,
killing an estimated 50 million worldwide
and over half a million in the US, according to the CDC,
all of which laid against the backdrop of World War I.
-The pandemic started in military camps,
first and foremost, so the military worked
to try and control those epidemics in the camps.
And these camps, a lot of them were located right next
to American cities.
-Dr J Alexander Navarro of the University of Michigan Center
for History of Medicine,
was part of a team of researchers
that asked a key question about the 1918 flu pandemic.
Did implementing non- pharmaceutical interventions
like social distancing, school closures,
bans on public gatherings prove effective in saving lives
while developing a vaccine?
-We studied 43 American cities.
They were the largest American cities at the time,
and what we found is, based on our historical data
and the statistical analysis,
is that cities that implemented these NPI,
these non-pharmaceutical interventions,
early in a layered fashion --
so we're talking about layering multiple interventions --
and in a sustained manner, so kept them on for longer,
those cities fared better.
-State-wide closure orders, mandatory mask ordinances,
and other forms of mitigation were widespread.
Cities like San Francisco even imposed fines on individuals
failing to wear a mask in public,
though one of the main differences between
1918 and 2020 is the importance of the service industry
for the modern economy.
-Economic life was a lot different then.
Today, the ways in which the disease is spread,
those are gonna impact and have impacted
the service sector jobs more than anything.
You know, this is an economy
that is built on the service sector,
so I think we're in for a much greater
and more severe economic impact today than we were in 1918.
-The fall of 1918 was the deadliest period
in the pandemic in the US,
right as soldiers were returning home
and supporting the war effort was at an all-time high.
-The historical context here is daily life
was heavily impacted by the war effort,
and so the average Joe in the fall of 1918
was very much preoccupied with things
like the Liberty loan drives.
So the idea was to get as many subscriptions.
Each city had a quota of money they needed to raise.
-Philadelphia's decision not to cancel its Liberty loan parade
in late September resulted in 1,000 deaths
in the span of 10 days.
Other cities like Denver lifted restrictions
that November on Armistice Day to celebrate the end of the war,
only to experience a deadlier spike.
-Thousands of people flocked to downtown.
They go to movie houses and theaters and auditoriums
to hear lectures about the end of the war,
and almost instantly, within a few days,
there's another huge spike of cases,
and then shortly thereafter, deaths.
And that second spike is actually deadlier in Denver
and a few other cities than the first spike of cases.
-The advances in medicine, science, and technology
have made the 2020 landscape vastly different.
But the same behaviors might still ultimately persist,
even with guidelines from the CDC.
-Even though the historical context changes,
there's gonna be a great clamoring
to get back to life as normal,
and although epidemiologically, the virus and the pandemic
are gonna be with us for some time,
that's not the only definition, unfortunately, of a pandemic.
That's the scientific one,
but if society determines there's no more epidemic,
despite that fact that people still might be dying,
if they feel that the risk is worth it,
people are gonna go back to life as normal.
And, you know, there could be really terrible public health
consequences as a result.