Anyone watching American Experience on PBS? About the influenza epidemic of 1918.

[Cousin Dupree]

History repeating itself to the T. If you get a chance, watch it. Eerily similar to what’s going on now

[Zorro]

1. Eerily similar is right

Sobering episode.

[zackymilly]

2. Nope. I can look out the window and watch it live. n/t

[BigmanPigman]

3. My city has Polio as tonights subject, not the Spanish Flu.

[Cousin Dupree]

4. Our had Spanish Flu at 8:00 and Polio at 9:00. A real horror double feature.

[BigmanPigman]

7. I guess I will have to watch it on my tablet...

oh joy. Before the Polio episode they have a show about Ben Franllin's bones.

[mcar]

5. We watched is a few weeks ago

Yes, eerie similarities.

[SMC22307]

6. Yes, the polio episode! And I just about lost it when I saw Americans banding together...

to mail in dimes to the White House. (Guess I've been spending too much time on social media lately and it *ain't* healthy.)

[cwydro]

8. Thanks, I'll check that out.

Earlier, I was watching Great Courses’ lectures on the The Black Death. Also amazingly similar.

[misanthrope]

9. The final minutes are the most important part of the show

Interviewees openly muse on why Americans seemed to have collectively forgotten all about the 1918 pandemic. Why didn't it affect change more deeply?

The same thing can be said about the 1957 Asian flu (70,000 American fatalities) and the 1968 Hong Kong flu (100,000 American fatalities) which were both within the lifetimes of many still alive today. Those didn't seem to change anything either, certainly not in some of our leaders who lived through both of them.

I keep seeing/hearing people say the COVID-19 will bring about transformative change to society. I'll believe it when I see it because evidence says otherwise.

[SharonClark]

10. I just read in short article about the influenza of 1918 and how the army handled

the situation at Camp Dodge in Iowa. It was a horror story with unembalmed bodied being sent back to families and some bodies were rotting and bloated when the families received them.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/2020/03/03/influenza-outbreak-700-soldiers-died-1918-iowa-camp-dodge-johnston-army-base-national-guard-flu/2843939001/