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The Bay Area during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic...
Open-air police court being held in Portsmouth Square, San Francisco. To prevent crowding indoors, judges held outdoor court sessions
Open-air police court being held in Portsmouth Square, San Francisco. To prevent crowding indoors, judges held outdoor court sessions
The SF Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance requiring face masks. "While the vast majority of San Franciscans followed the mask order, police arrested 110 people on October 27 alone for failure to either wear or keep their masks properly adjusted."
http://influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html#
http://influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html#
Re early thread about hospital beds:
Crowded sleeping area on the Drill Hall floor of the Main Barracks, Naval Training Station, California, with sneeze screens erected as a precaution against the spread of influenza. https://www.thoughtco.com/1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-pictures-4122588
Crowded sleeping area on the Drill Hall floor of the Main Barracks, Naval Training Station, California, with sneeze screens erected as a precaution against the spread of influenza. https://www.thoughtco.com/1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-pictures-4122588
Street car conductor in Seattle not allowing passengers aboard without a mask. (1918).
The end of the face mask ordinance in San Francisco: "At noon on November 21, San Franciscans simultaneously removed their masks as a whistle-blow sounded across the city, the result of Mayor Rolph’s annulment of the ordinance the previous day." https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html#
The Flu in San Francisco: "Typically, immigrant communities were the hardest hit by the epidemic. Whether due to language barriers, entrenched poverty, or overt racism, immigrants routinely failed to seek out and receive proper medical care." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/influenza-san-francisco/
More on the face mask ordinance:
Citizens of San Francisco were reminded to don their masks through a popular rhyme of the day: “Obey the laws, and wear the gauze. Protect your jaws from septic paws.” Generally, the public obeyed and those who did not went to jail.
Citizens of San Francisco were reminded to don their masks through a popular rhyme of the day: “Obey the laws, and wear the gauze. Protect your jaws from septic paws.” Generally, the public obeyed and those who did not went to jail.
CDC website on the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html
Gary Kamiya in the Chron on the 1918 pandemic in San Francisco:
A city of masks: When the flu tore through San Francisco https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-city-of-masks-When-the-flu-tore-through-San-6499265.php
A city of masks: When the flu tore through San Francisco https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-city-of-masks-When-the-flu-tore-through-San-6499265.php
Mayor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph ... ordered all city schools and places of public amusement closed, banned lodge meetings, prohibited dances and recommended that churches hold services outside.
An open-air barbershop in Berkeley, Calif. Public events such as school classes, church services and court proceedings were encouraged to be held outdoors to hinder the spread of the disease during the influenza epidemic. National Archives photo.
Photos of the 1918 Flu Pandemic - via @TheAtlPhoto https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/04/photos-the-1918-flu-pandemic/557663/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
A report on the 1918 influenza pandemic in San Francisco from the perspective of 1941. Uses mortality rates as a basis for statistical plotting of the epidemic, and remarks on the community's response to the outbreak and lessons learned. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/flu/3970flu.0016.793/1/--influenza-epidemic-of-1918-1919-in-san-francisco?page=root;size=100;view=pdf
John Barry, author of The Great Influenza, holds SF's response as the standard for responding to the outbreak. When flu-related deaths topped 2k in Oct, the city closed everything from schools to dance halls, theaters, and other public gathering places. https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/09/spanish-flu-outbreak-1918-new-york-city-public-health-germ-city-museum/569947/
The US naval base on Yerba Buena was only accessibly by boat in 1918. The base’s 6,000 residents were confined to the island and no visitors were allowed ashore. The few arrivals allowed on the island were confined to quarantine. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181023-the-places-that-escaped-the-spanish-flu
Scientific journal article: The effect of public health measures on the 1918 influenza pandemic in U.S. cities
San Francisco, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Kansas City had the most effective interventions, reducing transmission rates by up to 30–50%. https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7588
San Francisco, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Kansas City had the most effective interventions, reducing transmission rates by up to 30–50%. https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7588
"in only two cities, St. Louis and San Francisco, are controls estimated to have achieved at least a 10% reduction in mortality for all model variants. Indeed, in San Francisco, we estimate that controls reduced mortality by at least 25%. "
A 2018 @sciam piece even more relevant now:
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: How Far Have We Come? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-1918-influenza-pandemic-how-far-have-we-come/?amp
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: How Far Have We Come? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-1918-influenza-pandemic-how-far-have-we-come/?amp
The outbreak in San Francisco began on Sept. 24, 1918, when a Chicago man arrived in the city carrying the virus. Three weeks later, 2,000 San Franciscans were infected. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/what-san-francisco-looked-like-100-years-ago-1918-12467752.php
San Francisco's population in 1918 was 500,000.
45,000 got sick. 3,500 died.
A 9% infection rate, and 8% mortality rate.
In today's population, that would be 79,000 sick, 6200 dead. But #coronavirus fortunately seems to be less contagious and less deadly than the Spanish Flu
45,000 got sick. 3,500 died.
A 9% infection rate, and 8% mortality rate.
In today's population, that would be 79,000 sick, 6200 dead. But #coronavirus fortunately seems to be less contagious and less deadly than the Spanish Flu
Timeline of the public health interventions in San Francisco in 1918:
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2007/04/09/0611071104.DC1/11071SIAppendix.pdf
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2007/04/09/0611071104.DC1/11071SIAppendix.pdf
Fascinating, but brief article on attempts to vaccinate against the 1918 Spanish Flu. They thought it was bacterial in nature. But there's a suggestion that pneumonia vaccines might have reduced mortality from opportunistic infections. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/spanish-influenza-pandemic-and-vaccines
(There's also disagreement between this and another article I cited about whether the Naval Base that was isolated was on Alameda or Yerba Buena. I think Alameda is probably right?)
