What happens when the feds don’t lead in a pandemic





I want to thank a good friend Rob Adams for sending me the attached quote from a great book he just read – and which he highly recommends that you and I read – about the 1918 influenza pandemic in the US. That pandemic cost 675,000 US lives. My friend also pointed me to this good article about how the worldwide origin of the virus was in Kansas.

The author forcefully makes the point that a large number of those 675,000 deaths could have been saved with a coordinated national response – especially if the Army had stopped troop movement between camps. Those movements ensured that the initial outbreak in Kansas spread to a large portion of the troops being sent to Europe for World War I. The US troops infected those from other countries, who went home and infected their homelands. In the end, 50 million people died worldwide.

There has been a lot of federal response to the pandemic this year, but it’s been anything but coordinated. This is not only because the Trump administration has specifically denied the need for national coordination, but because Trump and a number of governors have deliberately undermined measures – like mask wearing – that are required to defeat the virus.

The 1918 pandemic started with what looked like a very serious outbreak in the spring, just like what happened this year. However, in 1918 there was a much larger wave in the fall, which accounted for more deaths than the spring outbreak. It would be nice to say that we currently have the virus under control, and even if there are more outbreaks in the fall, they will be quickly contained through massive testing, contact tracing and quarantining – so it’s very unlikely the US will suffer the same fate this year.

Yes, it would be nice to say that. But it wouldn’t be true.


I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com

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