Lessons to be learned from the 1918 pandemic
It has happened before: The Great Pandemic’s impact on Georgia
Opening Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services
January 13, 2006
The Great Pandemic also touched Georgia.
It probably arrived during the first week of October 1918, and then spread like a wildfire throughout the state. In just three weeks, from October 19th to November 9th, there were more than 20,000 cases and more than 500 deaths.
Towns and communities were terribly affected.
Augusta was the hardest-hit city in the state. Trained nurses were far too few for the many needs, and they too were struck down by the pandemic. As a consequence, nursing students were put in charge of shifts at a local hospital. Schoolteachers were enlisted to act as nurses, cooks and hospital clerks, at an emergency hospital constructed on a local fairground.
In Athens, the University of Georgia announced that it was indefinitely suspending classes.
In the town of Quitman, stringent rules were established to combat influenza, which touched almost facet of life:
- Public gatherings, including indoor funerals, were prohibited
- Public spitting was outlawed
- The serving of any beverage was prohibited in public places, unless it was poured into sanitary cups or served in glasses that were thoroughly sterilized each time they were used
- The accumulation of dust in places of business was prohibited. Merchants were ordered to keep their floors damp enough to keep the dust down
- All cases of influenza were ordered quarantined. In places where the disease had struck, a placard stating "influenza" had to be displayed
A similar strategy was adopted in Atlanta. The City Council declared a ban on public gatherings for two months. Schools, libraries, theaters and churches were all closed.
For better ventilation, streetcars were ordered to keep their windows open, except in the rain.
Yet despite all those desperate measures, the pandemic still extracted a terrible toll.
Final casualty figures in Georgia will never be known. After making their initial reports, state officials were simply too overwhelmed to tell the U.S. Public Health Service anything more.
